


dear friend

by alicemurphy



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Rom-Com AU, She Loves Me AU, angry!Jen, carrot cake, soft!Judy, two idiots standing next to each other not knowing they're in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24545995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicemurphy/pseuds/alicemurphy
Summary: Judy gets hired at Jen's place of work and immediately Jen hates her.At the same time, Jen is falling in love with a woman from a support group online.
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 251
Kudos: 398





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I can’t resist the urge to write very elaborate AUs based on random other fictional things, so here we go again.
> 
> This is based on the musical She Loves Me (or the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie – which the film Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film You’ve Got Mail is also based on). It’s totally not necessary to have seen either. 
> 
> The basic premise is two people hate each other in person, but have unknowingly anonymously fallen in love with each other through newspaper letters/emails - in this case, I'm going with online.
> 
> I really hope this works! The idea came into my head and just seemed to fit Judy & Jen too well to ignore.

Jen’s really trying to be positive about her day when she walks into work.

Charlie actually ate breakfast this morning, and Henry barely needed coaxing out of the car to go into school, slowly releasing his hesitations about leaving his mother on her own since his father died.

He’s been slightly better about it since she started working with his grandmother. Apparently, he thinks that Jen and Lorna can help look after each other or something. Jen would rather poke her own fucking eye out than spend a second with her mother-in-law if she can help it. Being at home alone is about a million times more fucking appealing.

Trying to concentrate on the small victories isn’t easy.

Jen’s been working for Lorna at her art gallery for about a month now, and she fucking hates it. It’s one of those art galleries in the middle of a big hipster-y gentrified area, the type that sells paintings for thousands of dollars yet has a pretty much constant stream of people coming in from the street all day that Jen and the two other staff members have to entertain. Lorna, of course, never shows her fucking face until the second someone actually expresses an interest in one of the higher-end pieces, appearing from fucking nowhere to steal Jen’s commission like the fucking vulture she is.

_Anger, Jen. It’s a fucking problem, remember?_

She takes a deep breathe and tries to get settled into work, putting her bag and phone in the back so she can go and greet Mrs Wallace, who is here for the third time this week to look at the same painting. Jen doesn’t think she’ll ever actually buy it, but she gets to spend the next hour trying to convince her to anyway. _Yayyyyy…_

The hour’s almost up, Mrs Wallace gathering her things together to leave without buying anything once again, when the door opens, and a woman walks in. There are a couple of other people in the shop, all the normal horrific arty types or people who clearly have way too much money to know how to act like actual human beings, and so the rest of the staff is too occupied to greet her.

Leaving Jen to do the honours.

“Hello, may I help you?” says Jen, putting on her very best smile that might almost come off as genuine if she wasn’t already glaring at the new woman in the room. She has a full-on fringe and a long flowy dress with far too colourful flowers all over it, yet she wears a bracelet that Jen knows is worth more than the down payment on her house was.

_Fucking perfect. Arty and rich as fuck. Everything I hate about this place in one._

And then Jen sees her smile, how absolutely ridiculously large it is, like she can’t help but smile at everyone, and Jen sort of wants to strangle her for daring to be so positive in her gloomy vicinity.

_Maybe let her talk first?_

“No.”

Jen’s face scrunches up.

_Oh._

_Well fuck you too then._

The woman looks a little apologetic, nervous even, “Well, erm, maybe. Is Lorna Harding here?”

“She’s in the back somewhere.”

“Do you think I could talk to her?” _there’s that fucking smile again…_

Jen cringes. She really doesn’t want to go and have to disturb Lorna, preferring to keep as much distance as possible when they work in the same building.

“I, umm, she’s quite… busy? Can I help with anything?”

“I’ll wait till she’s free.”

“Well okay then,” Jen says, perfectly prepared to just walk off and leave this woman standing there until Lorna decides to deem everyone with her presence again. She’s interrupted.

“Wait, umm, the woman who was fired from here last week, she hasn’t been replaced yet, right?”

“Are _you_ looking for a job?”, Jen asks incredulously, glancing down again at that bracelet, which the brunette quickly nervously covers. _Obviously, there’s a story there_ , she passively thinks, but honestly, she couldn’t care enough to try and find it out.

The woman laughs, much too loud for a quiet art gallery, then awkwardly utters “I guess you could say that, yes”, smiling again.

“Well, I’m sorry,” says Jen, not sounding sorry, “but we’re actually not replacing her right now.”

“Oh.” A frown appears on the woman’s face, and Jen thinks it looks so unnatural, so wrong for someone so smiley and happy and gross. “Are you sure? I’m really good.”

“Definitely sure. If you’re only here for the job, you should probably leave” Jen says a little unkindly, hoping the woman will get the message and go quickly.

“My, Jennifer, telling customers to leave, you’ll never do well here if you keep doing that” Jen hears and _fuck_ , fucking Lorna is right behind her.

Jen turns abruptly, shocked, but quickly adjusting and putting a smug look on her face. She might be able to knock both of these women down a little here. “This woman is looking for a job.”

Lorna looks at the colourful dress, horrified, and almost screeches, “absolutely not!”

“I’m really good, I promise, and I know a lot about art, I paint a little, I love it, I promise I’ll be able to help a lot” the woman starts, but upon no response from Jen or Lorna, she tries a different tactic. “Look, I’ll show you. That woman over there was almost buying something right?” she says, pointing at where Mrs Wallace is somehow still standing and storming over.

_Good fucking look with that, that bitch is only here to torment me and waste my fucking time, she’ll never buy anything._

Jen can’t hear what is going on, but she sees the brunette’s body language change, become so friendly and loose, smile plastered on her face looking so much more genuine and friendly and inviting than the blonde could ever master, and it’s barely a few minutes before the brunette is back with them.

“She’s going to buy those two” she says, waving at two of the most expensive paintings in the entire building. Lorna looks impressed. Jen looks like she’s trying to figure out if there’s a knife lying around she can use to stab her with. _How dare she fucking show me up like that, AND steal my commission, and all while acting like the loveliest person on the fucking planet._

“You’re hired, miss- “

“Hale. Judy Hale.”

“Miss Hale. You start tomorrow. But don’t expect to get commission on that sale, you aren’t working for me yet. Jennifer here can supervise you for your first few weeks.” Lorna says, and Jen is barely containing a scream. Lorna turns to Jen to add, “although, Jennifer, maybe you should learn some things from Miss Hale here. You took far too long trying to get that sale.”

_Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, someone hold me back…_

*

Jen’s still angry when she finally gets home that night. Thankfully, this new Judy-person left soon after she was hired, but she’s already feeling heavy knowing just what fucking hell tomorrow is going to be, having to be stuck with that ball of sunshine all day.

Her grief support group meeting is tonight, her sons with their grandmother, so she quickly goes onto her laptop to join in. _Ah shit, I’m going to be so late._

After Jen’s husband died about six months ago now, Jen was a fucking wreck. She was so angry, so hurt, that she didn’t really know what to do, how to express it. She would take it out on anyone near her, would happily smash the car of a guy that pissed her off by driving too close or scream into a pillow at any given hour of the day.

Eventually, one of the few people she still considered a friend in her life, Christopher, told her to get help, because her anger was ‘an issue’ now, whatever the fuck that meant.

There was no fucking way Jen was going to be able to talk to someone face to face though, like a therapist or something, knowing she’d probably smash their office up if she didn’t like what they had to say (which, lets face it, she probably wouldn’t). And a group in person would be however awful therapy was times like 8 for all the people in the group, so that wouldn’t fucking work either.

She eventually found an online group, where people use a username to have an organised chat about their problems for a couple of hours a week, and she actually sort of liked it. No one knew who she was, other than as @winemommy, so she felt she could really speak without judgement, without any fear she could walk into one of them on the street and have everything she’s said come back on her.

It’s been about 3 months of these sessions now and Jen really thinks it is helping. Sure, she still has some anger problems, that is very much fucking obvious, but she didn’t throw that hippie woman through the glass door today like her whole body was itching to do, so clearly she is a little more in control.

The group session passes like normal, Jen contributing only a couple of things, but actively listening to what the others are saying for the most part, which she figures is enough for now. Really, she’s too eager for her favourite part of the night to start to want to participate more.

The favourite part always comes after the group chat, when one of the other members, @thegirlwithnoheart, messages her privately.

It’s been about a month since they first started talking. Jen was actually the one that started it, wanting to make the other woman feel welcome and check to see if she was okay after a particularly emotional group session. @thegirlwithnoheart had revealed in it that her fiancé had left her a couple of months ago after a series of miscarriages, and Jen felt so awful for the other woman – after all, at least Jen still has the boys to help her through her loss – that she actually paid interest in another human being, albeit really an anonymous name on a screen.

As she’s come to expect from it takes less than a minute once the group session has ended before a notification pings with a private message.

@thegirlwithnoheart - Hi dear friend

Jen doesn’t really know why they call each other that, but somehow all of their conversations begin with ‘hi dear friend’. @thegirlwithnoheart used it at the beginning of their second conversation, and it just stuck. She knows she should probably find it super gross, but for some reason Jen really kinda likes it.

She’s even been referring to @thegirlwithnoheart as ‘Dear Friend’ in her head lately. They haven’t exchanged real names or pictures or anything yet – Jen isn’t really sure that she wants to; she’s really comfortable taking to this other woman and that’s all she needs right now. And sure, ‘dear friend’ might be a little cutesy for Jen to ever admit to liking, but it’s not like she has to say it out loud, so she lets herself enjoy it a little.

She sure as hell isn’t going to keep calling her ‘the girl with no heart’, when her new friend seems to have the biggest heart of anyone she’s ever known.

@winemommy – Hi

@thegirlwithnoheart – how are you today? I noticed you didn’t say much in group. How was your day?

@winemommy – it was okay. Work was a fucking nightmare though.

@thegirlwithnoheart – oh? Wanna talk about it?

Jen laughs. She _never_ wants to talk about work. She does really think about it, sometimes, but their conversations are so heavy half the time anyway, so often filled with their mutual grief and understanding. There’s also that she really doesn’t want to show that she’s a fucking evil person that snaps at everyone all the time, so she tries to keep that side of her hidden from this woman she spends such long times talking to.

@winemommy – nope.

@thegirlwithnoheart – wanna get drunk and watch facts of life together instead?

@winemommy – now we’re talking

Jen quickly gets up to grab her wine and settle herself in front of the tv, switching over to her phone.

@thegirlwithnoheart – how are the boys today? was Henry any better going into school?

@winemommy – They were pretty great this morning. Char actually acted like a real human being and ate something, and Hen wasn’t so clingy, didn’t take too much coaxing.

@thegirlwithnoheart – that’s good, I’m glad they’re starting to do a little better. And that they’re being easier on you.

The amount of care that Dear Friend always shows, for both her and her boys, always makes Jen’s heart swell. It’s nice to know that there’s someone out there that genuinely is concerned about them, and not in that weird judgemental way that Jen so often feels from the people around her, like they’re concerned that she’s doing everything wrong, not just worried about her.

Even if Dear Friend is a total stranger that could be 1000 miles away.

Another message appears before Jen can respond.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I love this episode

Jen looks up at the tv.

@winemommy – Ha, of course you do, it’s all about Tootie.

There’s nothing back for a few moments, both sitting enjoying their tv show. And when Jen eventually does hear a notification, it’s her new friend rehashing the argument they seem to be having twice a week.

Jen thinks they both need the easy laughs.

@thegirlwithnoheart – you know just because you’re from Brooklyn, really doesn’t mean you’re a Jo. I bet you don’t even have the accent anymore.

@winemommy – wouldn’t you like to know

@thegirlwithnoheart – See, you’re a total Blair, a season 1 Blair, maybe, when she’s all rebellious, but a Blair.

@winemommy – you know what? fuck you

@thegirlwithnoheart – nah, you’d enjoy that too much

Jen can’t help but burst out laughing. This is exactly what she needs – someone she can talk to and joke around with and maybe even flirt a little, someone that doesn’t know what a total bitch she is almost all of the time, someone she can be real with when she needs to but who won’t judge her for it.

Eventually, once it is far too late, Jen starts to feel tired. She might actually be able to get some sleep tonight now the anger has gone and she’s feeling more relaxed. She’s smiled and laughed more tonight than she has since long before her husband’s death.

Jen’s head hits the pillow thinking how _fucking ridiculous_ it is that some stranger (who could be on the other side of the world for all she knows) can make her so happy. She barely thinks about how awful tomorrow at work is going to be with that annoying new girl to look after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never tried to write written conversations before so I hope it turned out okay? 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 💖


	2. Chapter 2

Judy wakes up in her tiny new apartment to see her phone still lying on her pillow next to her. She can’t help but smile, thinking of the hours she spent lying here talking to Dear Friend again last night.

She still doesn’t know why she called the other woman Dear Friend that first time, but continuously referring to her as ‘wine mommy' made Judy feel all sorts of things she didn’t want to think about. Especially not about a new friend who’s only being kind enough to take pity on her and help her through such a rough time.

She decides to send a quick message to her, hoping she can make the anonymous woman smile a little when she wakes up and reads it, starting her day in a positive way for however long it lasts.

@thegirlwithnoheart – Good morning dear friend of mine! I know you didn’t say much about what was wrong yesterday, but I hope that whatever it was, today goes a little better.

As much as it is basically part of her personality to flood all her texts with smiley face or heart emojis, she holds herself back.

She’s glad someone else in the grief support group made that mistake before she could. Dear Friend had spent an entire half an hour after the session, paragraphs and paragraphs of typed words ranting about how completely ludicrous they are, how ridiculous it is that a grown fucking man has to put a tiny little sad face picture in all his messages just so everyone knows that he might be a little _sad_ when he’s talking about his daughter’s death.

Judy honestly found the entire thing a little adorable, that something so insignificant could rile the other woman up so much, but she makes the effort to keep all her messages text-only anyway. She dreads to think what would happen if she started sending Dear Friend memes...

Eventually, important good morning message sent, she gets up, going about her morning routine with a little excitement because she actually has a job to go to today!

She gets dressed, putting another bright floral dress on, a little shorter than the one yesterday, but figures it’s probably best to skip the jewellery this time. It’s not like she particularly likes any of her more high-end things anyway. Her ex, Steve, and his family had given them to her for every birthday, or Christmas or apology. There are also a few pieces, hidden away so she doesn’t have to look at them, that were given to her as a ‘you just had a miscarriage, here, have a sparkly thing and get over it' gift.

She knows she should probably just sell all of it, that the money alone is reason enough to get rid of it all, but she just hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Its not like she wants Steve back at all – no, finally realising what an _asshole_ he was is probably the best thing she’s ever done. But it’s still a part of her past, and some of the less obtrusive things she actually kinda likes.

Like the bracelet she wore yesterday.

She noticed how irritated that angry blonde woman – Jen, was it? – got when she saw her bracelet, as if she was ridiculous for wanting a job when she could own something like that. She really wants to be able to get on with her new co-workers, for them to like her, and so she skips accessories just in case.

She leaves for work with a smile on her face, optimistic about what the day will bring.

*

“Hello,” says Judy, smile trying to be bright and welcoming when she walks through the door.

The blonde, Jen, is the only one there.

“Hmm, hi” she thinks she hears back, but immediately Jen is turning her back to her and walking away into the back room.

_Well, okay then..._

The day starts and Judy tries to keep in Jen in her immediate vicinity since Lorna told her to shadow her.

Occasionally, when they don’t have a customer, she tries to remind the other woman that she’s around. She feels like she keeps being forgotten.

“Oh, will you fucking cut that out?” Jen snaps, hissing and turning to look at Judy for the first time in well over an hour.

Judy's face falls.

“I’m sorry" she says immediately, then reminds herself what Dear Friend has been saying about not being so apologetic lately. “It's just, I feel wasted just standing here. Is there anything I can do?”

“Not really, no, we didn’t exactly need another person around here, there was barely enough work anyway.”

Judy's not sure why, but while she can tell Jen is upset, she thinks it probably isn’t really to do with her. Without thinking, she steps forward, reaching a hand out to run over the blonde’s upper arm to try offer some comfort.

Jen jumps so high its surprising she isn’t wearing one of the ceiling tiles as a necklace.

“Jesus Christ! Can you not –I don’t – for fuck’s sake, can you just stop hovering and leave me alone, please?”

Judy doesn’t mean to laugh, but there’s just something about the way Jen looks, so alarmed, so on edge, from the tiniest bit of physical contact.

The giggle escapes her, and Jen is instantly looking at her with a glare so impressive her head probably should have exploded or something.

She tries to play it off, to make a joke, to not make her new co-worker completely hate her.

“I would, but I’m literally being paid to stare at you all day...”

It doesn’t work.

The rest of the day is uncomfortable, messy, Jen snapping at every possible opportunity and Judy fighting the urge to continuously apologise, trying to offer the blonde woman friendly smiles whenever she does look her way - but weirdly they just seem to anger her even more.

She does get to meet her other co-workers at lunch though, Ben and Karen, and they’re both so bubbly and sweet, if a little awkward at times. They actually ask her questions, wanting to get to know her, and its not until then that it occurs to her _just how rude_ Jen has been all day. Judy would probably be shocked if she even remembered her name with how disinterested she’s been.

But then Jen walks into the back room, seeing the three of them sitting there gossiping, and quickly walks back out, abandoning the coffee she presumably came in for. She hears Karen giggling at the side of her, and turns and looks questioningly

“Oh, don’t mind her. We tried to be friendly with her for so long, but she just wasn’t having it. What an asshole, right?” Karen answers, looking to Ben as if looking for validation that what she said was okay and correct, like the words don’t fit right in her mouth.

“Such an asshole” he responds, nodding.

“I don’t think she’s that bad. She just seems, I don’t know, there’s something sad about her to me" says Judy, feeling the need to defend the woman that has been so awful to her all day. She doesn’t like them describing Jen that way.

“Hey, Judy! Get your ass back out here. Why are you taking so fucking long?!” she hears yelled from the main gallery.

“What did we tell you? What a jerk" Ben says, rolling his eyes.

Judy isn’t quite so inclined to disagree anymore.

*

By the time Judy gets home, she’s exhausted, so drained from constantly having to clash with people all day.

She wants nothing more than to just collapse into her bed and sleep, but she knows Dear Friend will message her later, much later, after she’s put her kids to bed and has a glass of wine or two in her, so she forces herself to stay awake.

@winemommy – hello dear friend

@thegirlwithnoheart – what’s cooking good looking?

@winemommy – you’re ridiculous

@winemommy – you don’t even know what I look like. I could be 100 years old and all wrinkly and orange.

@thegirlwithnoheart – you could, but you’re a total babe, I just know it

There’s a pause, and Judy worries for a second if her ridiculous flirting has gone too far for once. Dear Friend doesn’t always seem to know what to say when she gets a little too flirty, but Judy thinks it makes the woman feel good, the silly playfulness between them, and that’s the most important thing.

@winemommy – god how the fuck do I already feel a hundred times better after talking to you for like five seconds

_See?_ Judy thinks, genuine smile breaking out on her face for the first time all day. _I knew I was right about her._

@thegirlwithnoheart – tough day?

@winemommy – ha, you could say that, yes. The boys were good though for once. They seemed to pick up on my horrendous mood and didn’t push it. How’s your day been?

_Oh, avoiding talking about yourself again, are we?_

Judy finds it a little ridiculous, how genuinely Dear Friend asks about her, wants to know about what’s going on in her life, and yet just will not open up about herself. Sure, she’ll talk about her kids endlessly (which Judy loves hearing because she clearly loves her boys - its adorable), she’ll joke about being a teenager or talk a little about what her life used to be like with her husband.

But getting her to tell her anything about to do with herself, with her day or how she feels about something, is completely impossible.

Judy thinks she probably doesn’t see herself as important enough to talk about, that she doesn’t think Judy could ever care about the things she feels and does because they don’t matter.

Judy very much disagrees, but she’s trying not to push too hard and scare her friend away.

@thegirlwithnoheart – it was okay. Did I tell you I started a new job? I met a couple more of my new co-workers today and they were so sweet and nice. You’d probably hate them.

@winemommy – if they’re as sweet and nice as you? Definitely

@thegirlwithnoheart – c’mon, you know you love me.

Judy feels a little bit like she’s lying, by not mentioning Jen when she talks about her new co-workers. She thinks about it, really does, even starts typing a message about her, but the woman on the other end is being all upbeat and playful tonight and she really doesn’t want to bring the conversation down.

Plus, she’s about 90% sure that if Judy mentioned that someone was mean to her, Dear Friend would finally show her face by storming into the art gallery and punching Jen with all her might.

@winemommy – painting not doing enough for you anymore then? You know you really do need to let me see your art someday, you promised ages ago

@thegirlwithnoheart – I know, I know. And I will I swear if Steve ever lets me get it all back.

@winemommy – he’s a fucking douche.

Judy can’t help but let out a cackle. _This_ is what she needs today.

@thegirlwithnoheart – agreed.

It’s so sweet how much Dear Friend seems to actually care about her. But it’s foreign too, unlike anything Judy has ever experienced before. Even at the very beginning with Steve, he never truly showed that much interest in _her_. In the idea of her, sure, in her body, definitely, but actually in what she felt and thought and wanted?

Judy didn’t realise the extent of his disinterest until she moved out, into this tiny one bedroom, and didn’t have enough possessions to fill it. Her wardrobe was full, and her jewellery box, Steve never missing an opportunity to show her off or make her look pretty, but somehow, after years and years together, the rest of her belongs could fit in one sad lonely cardboard box.

Dear Friend was _so different_. Judy’s heart warms whenever she thinks of how someone might really care about her now, care about her wellbeing and her feelings and her interests, no matter if the other woman will frequently joke about them being a little too ‘woo-woo’.

It started as just another form of grief support but it’s so much more than that now. Honestly, Judy never really cared much for the group meetings – she’s always been better face to face, interacting with real people instead of a screen, and the group is just a little too chaotic for her.

She doesn’t even feel like she really needs the support meetings now, not now that Steve is gone and she has someone that wants to care about her, someone that is undoubtedly helping her more than a grief meeting ever could. She’s not about to leave now, though, not when she gets to spend hours messaging her new friend after every session.

They message for a while, until eventually Judy’s phone stops pinging, no more notifications, and she assumes that Dear Friend must have finally fallen asleep. _That’s good_ , she thinks.

It’s 2am and she has to be up in a few hours for work, but Judy still can’t quite settle. She really needs to get better at this whole sleep thing.

She thinks about work tomorrow, already slightly dreading another day being yelled and snapped at by Jen, wondering what she did wrong, mind quickly trying to come up with something she can do to put it right.

She’s got nothing.

When she does finally fall asleep, it’s to the idea of getting to talk to Dear Friend again tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be the short filler chapter before real plot next, but things happened.
> 
> I would have had this up yesterday but my space bar broke and typing without it was hell. Sorry! 💖

A few weeks later

Jen wakes up slowly, as always, so reluctant to move and have to face the day. She’s so not a fucking morning person. But now that Ted's gone, there’s no one else to make sure the boys are up and ready for school, so she’s just going to have to deal with mornings until they’re old enough to fend for themselves.

She rolls over to reach for her phone on the nightstand but it’s not there. She rolls her eyes at herself before starting to pat down her entire bed, eventually finding it tangled within the sheets. _Fuck, I guess I fell asleep while we were talking again last night._

She feels a little bad, a little guilty for once again abandoning their conversation, but Dear Friend has told her enough times now that it’s fine, that it’s good that she can end up relaxed enough to sleep, and so she tries not to let it get to her. The other woman has said that she isn’t insulted, and she certainly seems to have enough sleeping problems of her own, so she probably gets it.

Jen’s still a little worried that her friend doesn’t think that she’s enjoying their conversations as much as she is though. She loves every fucking second that they’re interacting. It’s so gross.

She opens her phone to see the last few messages from last night.

@winemommy - Bananarama? Really babe?

@thegirlwithnoheart – hey their music stands up! ooh do you remember Samantha Fox?? I was way too young to be dancing to Touch Me, I had no idea what it was about, but I was so into it.

@thegirlwithnoheart – are you still there?

@thegirlwithnoheart – I think you must've fallen asleep, talk to you tomorrow. Hope you sleep tight sweetie.

Jen can’t help but smile, heart filling a little at how lovely this person is. They just care so much. The pet name totally doesn’t do anything to her, fuck no.

She sees that there’s another message, sent about twenty minutes ago.

@thegirlwithnoheart – good morning dear friend. hope you have a great day. talk to you later, hot stuff

The morning message that she gets _every single day without fail_ helps her more than she’d ever care to admit. But being able to start every day with a smile, knowing that someone else is thinking about you? Jen doesn’t know that she’s ever had that.

She sends a reply, a little surprised to get a response straight away, because morning conversations aren’t a frequent thing for them.

@winemommy – yeah, I fell asleep, sorry babe. Guess I was more tired than I thought

@thegirlwithnoheart – or you were just so soothed by me that my messages sang you to sleep or something

@winemommy – is it strange I want to hear you sing? you’re probably annoyingly good at it.

Maybe mornings aren’t quite so horrific if this gets to be how she starts them every day.

They’ve been talking more and more lately. For the first month or so, it was just after group meetings, or very late at night when they both couldn’t sleep.

Now Jen’s trying to resist the urge to constantly check her phone, face always lighting up whenever there is a message from Dear Friend. It’s like she’s a fucking teenage girl again, obsessively waiting to hear from her crush.

Thoughts like that hit her sometimes, that she’s acting like a kid in love.

It’s completely ridiculous, of course. They’ve never even met. Dear Friend could be someone weird and horrible and could have lied to Jen about everything. Or she could completely hate Jen, hate how grumpy and angry and messed up she is.

Except somehow Jen knows that isn’t true, knows that Dear Friend is more honest with her than anyone else in life, knows that she really, genuinely cares about her.

The acting like she has a crush thing is definitely concerning though. She tries so hard not to think about it, to push those thoughts away whenever they appear.

She still can’t make herself not jump up every time her phone beeps though.

She’ll just have to worry about it another time. If there is one thing Jen Harding can do, it is avoid a problem she doesn’t want to think about.

She’s downstairs making breakfast, sipping on some coffee, before a noise has her diving for to unlock her phone again.

@thegirlwithnoheart - hmm, I’m alright, I mean, I’ve never been kicked out of bed doing it?

Jen fucking spits out her coffee, ruining her nice white blazer. _Shit._

*

She gets to work, only after trying on another four or five blazers to search for another one that goes with this outfit, to find that once again, she’s the only one on time. _What is the point in getting here on time when literally no one else gives a fuck._

Wait, no – Judy comes rushing in at that second, just as the clock chimes nine. She looks frazzled, clearly not really aware of her surroundings, because she runs straight into Jen as she turns through the door.

“Oh, hi Jen” she blushes.

Jen can’t help but comment; “Judy. I see you’re actually on time today. Congrats.”

“Yeah, well, my car, it um… and well I couldn’t… and I was just…” stumbles Judy, glancing a little at the phone still in her hand before stopping herself, like she doesn’t actually want to share what she was going to say with Jen. “But look! I made it today!”

She tries to offer the blonde a weak, sort of hopeful smile, as if that’s going to make up for Jen having covering for her (and everyone fucking else) with Lorna the past few days, because as awful as Jen can be, she’s not going to subject anyone to the wrath of _fucking Lorna_.

Jen rolls her eyes. She’s really past accepting shitty excuses from people, and turns to go settle into work.

*

Over their lunchbreak, Jen walks into the backroom to see Judy laughing and joking with Ben and Karen, clearly fitting in well with their special brand of weirdness that she’s always felt so very excluded from.

It makes Jen sort of uncomfortable, to see it, like she feels left out, a little jealous that she can’t interact with people like that. It annoys her sometimes that her default is angry and grumpy and not smiley and friendly. It's a little unfair. People like _Judy_ get to walk into a room, smile at someone, and then have a friend for fucking life. It’s never been that easy for Jen.

But at least she does have someone, exactly one person. She quickly grabs her phone, face lighting up when she sees there’s a new message.

@thegirlwithnoheart - seriously though, I’m just okay. I do a mean Purple Rain at karaoke though

@winemommy – fuck, of course you do karaoke…

There’s something else she wants to say but she’s not sure. In the end, she just hits send and quickly looks away from her phone.

@winemommy - really though, I can’t wait to hear you sing babe.

It’s feels so fucking disgusting, being open and honest and trying to tell someone how she feels. But the effort is worth it with Dear Friend unlike anyone else.

She’s more than a little terrified though, because yeah, they’ve joked, occasionally, about one day meeting, but that’s the most direct thing that Jen has ever said about the future. She wasn’t that explicit – she could probably still laugh it off – but fuck, she needs to know what this woman sounds like, what she looks like.

Shit, she’d probably go to a fucking karaoke bar to have strangers awkwardly sing in her face if she meant she actually got to meet this woman.

Jen looks up to see Judy looking over at her curiously. There’s a slight frown on her face though.

_How the fuck long has she been staring for? Urgh, she’s probably thinking about how she didn’t even know I was capable of smiling because I'm so fucking awful or something._

Feeling a little embarrassed under the scrutiny of a co-worker, Jen quickly puts her phone away. Their lunch hour is almost over and it’s about time to open the store again anyway. _Ahh, the one positive of gallery hours._

It gets busy for a while, but mid-afternoon the store becomes mostly empty, so they’re all just stood around. Jen catches Judy trying to sneakily look at her phone from the side of the room, something Lorna will absolutely not let them do.

And really, she knows that she should be nicer, but she’s _stressing_ because of the last message she sent Dear Friend, wondering what the response will be by the time she can finally look at her own phone, and honestly, _why should fucking Judy get to look at hers when I’m going fucking insane here not being able to see mine??_

So, she snaps.

“Oh my God, excuse me. Are you seriously on your fucking phone right now? Are you that fucking desperate for human contact that you can’t go nine seconds without fucking talking to someone? What the fuck?”

It’s hardly the first time she’s snapped at Judy lately. It’s not the first time that she’s made those eyes go wide and an absurdly large pout appear either.

She always regrets snapping when she sees Judy’s face after. The expression just looks so incredibly wrong on her stupid happy face.

Jen thinks that the snapping might be really affecting Judy too. The way that the other woman interacts with her has been different lately. At first, it was like no matter how mean Jen was, she’d always bounce back, still all smiles, acting like she was trying everything to win Jen around. But now it’s like she’s completely given up on that. It’s like all of her eagerness and determination to get close to Jen has gone.

It’s like she’s completely given up on _her._

It fucking hurts Jen a lot more than some strange woman not caring about her should, and she has no idea why.

And, Jen being Jen, isn’t good at dealing with any emotions more intelligent than ‘rage’, so instead of trying to really figure out what she’s feeling, why she is so fucking _confused_ about this woman, she lets herself feel annoyed whenever she sees Judy, when she sees her smile pointed at anyone but her.

She definitely can’t deny what she feels when the work day finally finishes, however, Judy left talking to the one remaining customer while the others go to gather their things. Anticipation and excitement are building in her, because she can finally get to look at her phone and she knows there will be a message from Dear Friend and maybe she’ll finally be able to feel at peace again.

Except it isn’t there. No new messages from anyone.

Jen feels empty.

She wants to feel annoyed, wants the comfort and familiarity of some mild anger, that Dear Friend didn’t take the time to respond to her lovely message at lunch, a message where she actually put herself out there just a little.

She has read receipts on, so she _knows_ the other woman has seen it.

_What the fuck could be more important than responding to me?_ Is what she wants to ask.

She can’t quite grasp onto the anger that she wants to feel though – she’s too sad for that.

Judy walks into the breakroom at that moment and sees Jen, sees how downfallen her face. She’s by her side quickly, reaching out as if to touch her arm before obviously realising that would be a terrible idea and pulling her hand back into herself.

“Is everything okay, Jen?” she asks, so gently, so kindly.

Jen growls and storms out.

By the time she gets home, roughly pulling the door to her house open and grabbing her phone out her bag, there’s a message from Dear Friend. And another one after that.

@thegirlwithnoheart - I’m so sorry honey I got caught up at work before I could hit send. It’s been such a strange day, I hope yours has been better than mine. What are you and the boys up to tonight?

@thegirlwithnoheart – but just so you know, I can’t wait either.

Just like that, Jen is fine again, heart beating out of her chest with something that is definitely _not_ fear or anger. She feels like she’s finally able to relax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is so weird writing Jen’s ‘dialogue’ with DF and not being able to have her say some variation of ‘Judy’ every other line, it feels so unnatural haha
> 
> Thank you for all your comments and kudos so far, it means the world.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the double upload to anyone who read this an hour ago, I decided to move the chapter split.
> 
> Thank you all who mourned the loss of my space bar with me. It is missed.
> 
> Anyway, onto the story… 💖

Judy doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy before.

She has a job that she actually mostly enjoys, getting to talk about art all day and meet so many different kinds of people, she has her own space that is actually starting to look like hers for once, and she has one amazing friend.

Other than at work, where Jen and Lorna still won’t let her so much as glance at her phone all day, her and Dear Friend talk almost constantly now.

Judy still sends her morning message, the very first thing she does when she wakes up, a response coming about twenty minutes later, and then it’s like they’re off, talking about everything and nothing for the rest of the day, until the other woman finally falls asleep at night.

If Dear Friend was anyone else, Judy might be concerned that they have to be neglecting their children with how often they’re messaging, how quick the woman is to respond to whatever ridiculous thing Judy just sent. She feels guilty about it sometimes, that she’s taking this amazing mom away from her kids when they obviously need her more than Judy does.

But like half of the messages her friend sends are about what the boys are doing, how they are, what Henry is having for breakfast, anything to do with them. It’s so obvious how involved she is in their lives, even if she must always have her phone ready next to her.

Judy loves hearing about the boys so much.

In a really strange way, it sort of feels like she knows these kids, like she already cares about them just from hearing about them from their mom. She sort of feels like the boys are in her life now too. It’s nice.

They clearly know about Judy’s existence too (which, honestly, how could they not by now when she takes up so much of their mom’s time.) Dear Friend asks Judy to send her recipes sometimes, because she apparently is not such a great cook, and the messages she gets back make her feel like maybe she’s involved in their family, just a little, even from far away.

@winemommy – Henry says thank you so much for the lasagne, it’s his new favourite meal and wants it every fucking day now. Char went something like ‘huh’ and went all teenage grumbly about it not having meat in but he ate two servings anyway so I think you win.

The smile doesn’t leave her face for days whenever she finds out she had a positive impact on the boys lives. They’ve been through so much, the whole family has, and she just wants to help them however she can. Even if it’s just sending lasagne recipes (and then spending two hours talking Dear Friend through each step to make sure it’s right because yeah, she really can’t cook.)

Life is so much better than Judy ever thought she would get to have.

There’s only one thing that keeps bothering her – Judy can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to meet Dear Friend.

It’s the constant thought in her mind now, running underneath their every interaction. What does she actually sound like when she’s talking to Judy, when she’s laughing or crying? What does she look like, smell like, act like, what would she feel like to finally hold and hug? Who is she?

Wait – no. That last question Judy already knows the answer to. The other woman might be shy about so much superficial stuff, but Judy _knows_ her, more than anyone she’s ever known before.

It seems like Dear Friend might just be wondering about Judy just as much, because lately they’ve both been joking so often about what the other might look like or act like. There are just so many messages between them, speculating about the other, some hilariously wrong, some so accurate it makes Judy’s chest clench.

@thegirlwithnoheart – oh, I meant to tell you, I saw this woman today and she reminded me of you

Judy drops into conversation one night, having been trying to bring it up for hours but they got distracted with other things again.

@winemommy – oh yeah? What was she like?

@thegirlwithnoheart – kinda uber boss bitch? Like perfectly cut pantsuit, heels, amazing hair, all this like super great energy

@winemommy – I’m wearing sweatpants and I haven’t washed my hair in three days. You might wanna adjust your expectations babe.

Judy can’t help but laugh. _Okaayyy if you say so._ She still thinks she has the right image in her head, whatever Dear Friend says. The woman definitely has a softer side, the one she shows with her boys and Judy, when she’s at home and relaxed, but she just knows that she’s so much tougher in public, with strangers, so much sharper.

*

Another day, Judy’s walking into the grocery store when her phone beeps.

@winemommy – are you absolutely sure you don’t have like bright blue hair?

@thegirlwithnoheart – What? No. why do you think that?

@winemommy – I don’t know, whenever I try to picture you, you get weirder and weirder. Right now, you have a nose ring, dark blue hair and one of those fucking long flow-y skirts

Judy laughs loudly, drawing the attention of a couple of other shoppers who she smiles at a little apologetically. _I wonder if I could ever pull off blue?_ She’s laughing again, because _definitely not._ The general image Dear Friend has is sort of in the right direction though, so she decides to try and tease her, just a little.

@thegirlwithnoheart – exactly one of those is correct

@winemommy – wait really? Which one?

@thegirlwithnoheart – not telling. I gotta go, gotta fight this woman for the last bag of lentils

@winemommy – ha, like you’re fucking fighting anyone babe

@thegirlwithnoheart – hey I could totally fight someone! I’d be great in a fight.

@winemommy – oh fuck no you wouldn’t, you’d be apologising before you even fucking hit them.

Judy laughs. That’s too true. She doesn’t want to say that though, switching back to something like flirting instead.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I could totally take you.

@winemommy – Ha. No, you couldn’t. Anyway, stop distracting me, tell me which one it is! Please? is it the nose ring? I bet it’s the fucking nose ring

@thegirlwithnoheart – nope, definitely not telling you now. Guess you’ll have to wait to find out.

@winemommy – guess I will

Judy leaves the shop without lentils, having picked them up from the bottom self to hand to the other woman, but with the biggest smile on her face.

*

Judy just really needs to meet Dear Friend already. She’s starting to get so desperate about it.

She knows she could just ask her to talk on the phone, or video call even, like a normal person. If one of them ever actually suggested it, she doesn’t think the other would be able to say no. For some reason though, neither of them has ever made that step, even though it’s been months and months since they started talking.

There’s something deep down inside Judy that screams that they need to meet face to face when they do make the next step, that this friendship, or whatever it is, is just too important to be dismissed by a simple phone call, especially after all this time.

It feels almost like them meeting will be a really significant moment for them both. Judy doesn’t really know how their relationship could be more significant, but she doesn’t want to risk the moment anyway.

They’ve both sent so many suggestions of what they could do together, how drunk Dear Friend could get Judy, how high Judy could get Dear Friend, all of the ridiculous and mundane activities, the farmers markets and nail salons and carnivals with Ferris Wheels, that they could go to together in a theoretical future.

Neither of them has actually tried to make a _plan_ to meet yet though, never quite crossed that line. 

Judy’s so determined to change that, but she chickens out every time she starts to ask. She must have half typed out requests to meet her friend a hundred times now, in the heart of the night when she knows the woman is sleeping, or in the middle of conversations when she’s meant to be replying to what Dear Friend has actually said, not suddenly asking whether she’s wants to hang out next weekend.

She gets really close one night, after a few glasses of wine, when there’s a slight lull in their chat.

@thegirlwithnoheart – can I ask you something?

@winemommy – of course babe

Judy types and retypes and retypes, then erases it all.

@thegirlwithnoheart – wait, never mind

@winemommy – oh, come on. It’s so fucking annoying when people do that

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah, you’re right I’m sorry

_Shit what do I say now?_

@thegirlwithnoheart – how was henry’s choir rehearsal today?

Judy knows that Dear Friend isn’t stupid, that she knows that isn’t what she wanted to ask, but the other woman’s kind enough to take pity on her and not push anyway, conversation going back to her boys again.

It’s not the last time she does it, and every time the woman on the other end of the message seems to get a little more annoyed, but she never snaps or gets angry with Judy. It’s a little strange, to be able to make a mistake, like send an irritating message, and take it back and not be attacked for it, so unlike how it was with her Mom or Steve or with people like Jen at work. It’s freeing.

Even if all she wants to do is actually ask the question.

*

One day, they’re in the middle of a conversation about Charlie’s new video game, and Judy just can’t take it anymore.

@winemommy - he just wouldn’t stop fucking laughing at me the little asshole. Like it was my fault I fucking died in the first ten seconds of his stupid game.

@thegirlwithnoheart – look, it’s totally up to you, and please, don’t feel like you have to say yes, it’s completely okay if you’re not ready yet - or even if you never want to – but, I would love nothing more than to finally talk to you in person. Do you maybe want to try to arrange meeting up somewhere?

Immediately, Judy freaks out and starts doubting herself, slamming the phone down on the sofa next to her so she doesn’t have to look at whatever rejection she’s about to get.

“Stupid fucking idiot- “

Judy’s phone beeps before she can work herself up anymore, and she’s scrambling to look at it, heart frozen before she can think twice about whether or not she wants to see the response.

@winemommy – fuck yes

_Oh. Well, good._

Judy’s face breaks out into the biggest, most overjoyed smile she’s probably ever had.

The speed of Dear Friend’s response isn’t lost on her. It makes her think that maybe Dear Friend might have been dreaming of them meeting more than anything too.

After a few seconds, her phone is pinging again.

@winemommy – sorry, I mean, yes, we can definitely try to arrange something.

@winemommy – I’d like to meet you too.

Judy pictures her friend’s ‘voice’, whatever it actually sounds like, it changes in Judy’s head all the time, saying that quietly, hesitantly, like it’s a gigantic admission she’s afraid to make.

The smile isn’t going away anytime soon. She’s so relieved. She knows they have so many details to sort out, but at least they both _want_ to meet each other.

She’s more than a little worried about where Dear Friend might be, because she really doesn’t want to wait a second longer than she has to and what is Judy going to do if she lives in Alaska or something?

Not that that would actually stop her at all from flying out there as soon as she can get time off work. If she’s honest with herself, Judy’s been preparing just in case that is what has to happen. Her car has desperately needed servicing for weeks now, it keeps breaking down or not starting and it makes her so late to work sometimes, but she just seems to keep putting it off. Because what is more important, a car and punctuality or someone as wonderful as Dear Friend?

Judy nervously types out her next question, holding her breath as she waits for the response.

@thegirlwithnoheart – So… I know we’ve never talked about it, but I should probably ask where you are if I’m going to have to book a flight to come see you or something.

@winemommy – Laguna Beach, CA. And who says I can’t come and see you?

She’s never once thought about the other woman coming to see her; Dear Friend has the boys and everything, obviously Judy is going to go to them.

Wait, fuck, _Laguna Beach?_

@thegirlwithnoheart – you’ve got to be shitting me

Judy sends the message without thinking, just her instant reaction spilling out as if they were having a conversation face to face. In all the time Judy pictured where Dear Friend might be, it never once was in her own town.

@winemommy – umm, no? Wait is that not okay? I know other people from round here tend to be rich fucking assholes but I’m not like them, I’m not that awful

Judy immediately feels awful for making her friend think anything like that

@thegirlwithnoheart – What? No, I know you’re not.

@thegirlwithnoheart – it’s just, you’re not gonna believe this but I’m in laguna beach too

@winemommy – fucking really?

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah

Judy has tears in her eyes. It feels like fate. She was totally prepared to have to fly 3000 miles, go literally anywhere to meet this person. Not across town. She didn’t even dream that it could be this easy. This perfect.

_Oh my god, how many times must I have seen Dear Friend and never known?_

The other woman must be thinking the same thing.

@winemommy – fuck, I wonder how many times I’ve walked past you in the grocery store or seen you around town

Judy’s crying, and it’s all so emotional, but she still can’t resist cracking a joke, trying to relieve some of the tension from Dear Friend, wanting to make her smile because she knows how tough she must be finding all this emotion, assuming she’s feeling even half of what Judy is.

@thegirlwithnoheart – any chance you went to that screening of Casablanca a couple of nights ago? There was a woman there that was crazy hot

@winemommy – what? No. fuck off.

_This is so ridiculous. I love it._

There’s no way Judy is going to be able to wait to meet now that she knows that they’re so close.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I was going to suggest that we meet in a few weeks, once I can get time off work, but that seems a little ridiculous now.

She gets a response immediately.

@winemommy – yeah no, let’s not do that

_Wait, what?_ Judy freezes, starting to freak out because has she changed her mind? Does she not want to meet at all now, now that its actually a real possibility?

@winemommy – how about tomorrow night? We can finally go get drunk together

@thegirlwithnoheart – yes

Judy sends her response instantly, keeping it simple because she can’t wait a second longer typing unnecessary nonsense because _yes_ , she needs that to happen.

@winemommy – maybe the wine bar on 3rd? the one with the green front

Judy agrees, it’s close to her work, not that Dear Friend could have known that. She still finds it a little ridiculous that they both know the same place; it all just feels so surreal.

They settle on a time, and Dear Friend organises for the boys to go to her friend Chris’ place after school, and then they’re back to joking with each other as if nothing monumental just happened, as if Judy doesn’t feel like something life-changing is about to happen.

*

Judy heads into work the next day feeling ridiculously happy.

It’s finally happening.

She gets to meet Dear Friend tonight.

Absolutely nothing could ruin how incredible she is feeling right now.

The day is going great, getting a couple of sales early in the morning so she doesn’t have to worry too much for the rest of the day, content to day dream about what the evening might have in store.

Even Jen seems to be in a pretty good mood, she actually said “Hello" to her, Karen and Ben in the back room over lunch before leaving with her coffee as usual. It’s a really lovely day.

It’s all going fine, until about half an hour before she’s meant to finish work.

Judy sees Jen coming up to her, scowl that has been mostly absent for the day back on her face.

“Lorna has some rich asshole client coming in in a couple of hours so you need to stay late tonight to see him” Jen says dismissively.

Judy’s stomach drops.

“What? No, I can’t.”

“Are you fucking serious? You’re the one that is constantly complaining that you never get given as much to do as the rest of us, here’s some fucking work.”

Judy tries to smile, to ease the panic rising inside her because she _why does this have to be happening tonight?_

“I know, and any other time I would really appreciate the opportunity, honestly, but I just can’t tonight. I have plans.”

“Cancel them" Jen says simply.

Judy’s eyes widen, horrified. She absolutely cannot tonight, finally getting to meet with Dear Friend is way too important to her – to both of them. She’s not going to make some excuse and leave the other woman waiting, she can’t disappoint her, not because of this.

“I can’t. I’m really sorry Jen. Any other night, I swear.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Judy! Can’t you just make something easy for once and just do it?” she’s yelling and it’s really starting to get to Judy.

“I’m sorry! I really am but I just can’t, not today” she’s practically begging, praying for Jen to understand so that her night with Dear Friend can go ahead as planned.

“Well that’s not fucking good enough, Judy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC in Jen's chapter
> 
> I have pages and pages of their online conversations now and it’s getting so hard to not just have the entire fic be them talking shit about nothing, I love them so much. 
> 
> The next few should be up fairly quickly. I have this drafted out through chapter 10 and can’t really decide which way I’m going to go from there yet. We’ll see…
> 
> Thank you so much for being so very kind with your comments. They really made me want to write this faster. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 💖


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! 💖
> 
> Okay, sooo, the story is going to slow down a little for a few chapters so I can keep switching between Judy & Jen and just, well... don’t hate me too much?? 
> 
> It’s coming.

“Well that’s not fucking good enough, Judy!”

Jen's angry, maybe irrationally so, but she just needs Judy to fucking _stay_ so that she can go and finally meet Dear Friend.

It’s quiet for a moment, everyone in the room staring, not that Jen is really aware of any of them, of anything besides Judy and her _desperation_ to get the other woman to work so that she doesn’t fucking have to.

“Fucking please?” Jen tries, trying to appeal to Judy’s people pleasing nature. Having to beg like this is only making her feel more uncomfortable, more volatile, and she’s a little worried what she might do it she can’t get Judy to cover for her.

There’s a pause, time frozen as Jen begs anything that might exist for this to work out.

“What is your problem with me?” Judy eventually asks, voice duller than Jen’s ever heard. It sounds wrong, empty even, without the brunette’s usual smile. “What did I do to make you hate me so much?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t hate you.”

Jen's taken aback. _Why would you fucking think I hate you?_ But then Jen thinks for half a second about any of their interactions, and Oh... she’s such a _fucking asshole._

“Really? Because it sure feels like you hate me. I can’t do a single thing good enough for you. You’re so mean all the time, and all I’ve ever done is try to be nice to you, but enough, Jen!” Judy says, building, emotions clearly rising during her outburst.

What she said wasn’t particularly harsh at all, Jen has probably said worse to her fucking kids before, but she’s still shocked that any came out of sweet Judy's mouth.

Judy seems pretty shocked by it too, eyes wide in panic, and then she’s looking away, around, as if searching for an exit.

“I'm really sorry, Jen... but I’m not staying” she mumbles finally, like she’s afraid to take up any more space in the room after her last speech, but still sounds decisive, like this is the one thing on earth she will not cave in on.

Jen kinda respects that, respects that Judy does in fact have boundaries, even if they’re conflicting with what she fucking needs right now.

But Judy flees the room before she can say anything more.

And, fuck, Jen feels fucking awful about it. How fucking far must she have pushed the other woman in order for an outburst like that to happen? Because that was definitely entirely her own fault, not Judy’s, Judy who can put up with the most irritating of time-wasting customers and always has a smile for fucking Lorna no matter what happens.

What the fuck did she do?

She needs to start being a better person. Dear Friend thinks she’s okay, thinks she’s actually nice, and yeah, maybe it’s because she has never seen her and it’s easier to laugh off the anger that occasionally comes through her messages when there isn’t someone yelling in your face.

But it kinda shows that maybe she can actually be nice to be people, if she wants to be, if she doesn’t let the anger completely lead her and she actually thinks for half a second about the real person she’s talking to.

She needs to do fucking better.

_Fuck, I’m gonna have to apologise to Judy..._

A throat clears behind her and she spins.

Ah, but first, Lorna.

“And what, pray tell, was that about, Jennifer.”

“I was just talking to Judy about tonight but she can’t stay either” Jen states, trying to keep it together.

“Oh no? Well I don’t know why you expected her to when you won’t either. You’re not exactly leading by example, are you?”

_Do not fucking punch her in the face Jen, do not punch her in the fucking face._

She takes a deep, calming breath so she doesn’t scream.

“I'm sorry Lorna. I am just busy tonight, this one night. Judy is too. You’re going to have to get someone else or rearrange.”

Lorna tilts her head, looking at her curiously in a way that signals Jen is going to fucking hate the next few minutes.

“What is so important that you have to do this evening anyway?”

“I'm just meeting someone" Jen offers, hoping she will fucking drop it.

“Oh? You haven’t asked me to have the boys.”

“Chris is picking them up and they’re staying with him.”

For some reason, Lorna flinches, like Jen personally slapped her around the face instead of saying a completely harmless sentence. _Shit, what the fuck is going through her fucking head now?_

“Don’t tell me you have a date, Jennifer?! Not so soon after my Teddy. It’s entirely inappropriate for you to be dating so soon."

“No, Lorna. _Jesus Christ._ It’s not a date-“ Jen starts, then thinks about how fucking hopeful she is about Dear Friend and feels like she’s sort of lying, maybe, “- well... it’s none of your fucking business, okay Lorna??”

_Shit I should not have fucking said that._

Lorna studies her for a second, long enough for Jen to start feeling uncomfortable under her glare, nervous about whatever she’s deciding on.

“Suit yourself, Jennifer.” Lorna finally says. “I'll do it myself tonight. I don’t know why I ever considered asking you and Ms Hale to stay anyway, I'll do a much better job on my own than either of you ever could.”

Jen fights the urge to roll her eyes, taking the fucking win for what it is and ignoring the normal criticism, already walking away from Lorna to head into the backroom since the day is finally just about over.

She can feel the layers of stress and anger that have been building over the last half hour, ever since Lorna first told her she would have to stay, since her argument with Judy, rolling away. There’s already excitement threatening to replace it, the knowledge that she will finally get to see Dear Friend soon making her heart rise.

Jen gets to the backroom and sees Judy walking out of the bathroom, still looking a little upset. The guilt pings back into Jen’s chest and she knows she has to say something.

“Judy. Hi. I… umm… I’m really sorry for how I spoke to you out there. I really shouldn’t have pushed you like that.” _Fuck, apologising isn’t fun._

“It’s okay” Judy responds instantly.

Jen’s eyebrows furrow. “No, it’s really fucking not, Judy. I was awful. Lorna was trying to make me stay and I can’t so I did the exact same to you and tried to make you stay and took my frustrations with her out on you and I’m really sorry, I was so mean --- oh shit, I acted like Lorna, that’s a fucking terrifying thought.”

Judy smiles, just a little, at the apology, hopefully seeing it as genuinely as Jen means it, laughing a tiny bit when Jen compares herself to Lorna, but not denying it.

_I guess I fucking deserve that._

Jen kind of expects Judy to forgive her immediately, it feels like that is what she probably normally does, like how she immediately says everything is okay. But she doesn’t, considering Jen for a second instead, and then finally asking a question, curious but not unkind, like she’s been thinking about it for a long time.

“Why do you work here, Jen? I mean… you obviously don’t really care about the art, and you hate Lorna so much, what it is?”

“Lorna’s my mother-in-law.” Jen says simply, looking confused. Judy’s been working here for _months._ “or she was, anyway, how do you not know that?”

“Well you umm, you don’t exactly talk to us much” that hits Jen deeply, knowing it’s true and feeling a little guilty about it now. _God, all these fucking emotions are so fucking much._ “Karen and Ben don’t know anything about you either.”

And maybe it’s all of the differing feelings building up inside her, maybe it’s because of the slight self-loathing that comes with how she treated Judy earlier, maybe it really is just that she fucking hates people gossiping about her, but Jen’s hackles are suddenly back up, and she can’t stop herself from lashing out one more time.

“So, what, you’re all just fucking talking about me behind my fucking back all the time?”

“What? NO, Jen. I didn’t mean it like that” Judy starts, trying to not let it all escalate again but Jen is already off.

“Fuck you Judy. I was really fucking trying to be a decent person for once. Enjoy your super important fucking night.”

With that, Jen storms off.

*

Jen gets into her car in an awful mood.

_Shit fuck fuck. I did it a-fucking-gain._

_Now I’m going to have to fucking apologise again tomorrow._

She leans her head back against seat, closing her eyes a second to just breathe.

She needs to _fucking snap out of it_ and cheer the fuck up before she sees Dear Friend in, _oh FUCK,_ 40 fucking minutes time.

Judy is just so fucking irritating to her. Why can’t they all just leave her alone to let her live her life? Why do they always have to talk about her, make her compare herself to them, just because she isn’t as nice and lovely and smiley and irritating?

And she really knows she went too far today, that she was way too mean. But she actually apologised, for once, actually felt bad and tried to make it up to the other woman, and she still just made Jen angrier again and she fucking hates that she always ends up losing it like that.

Jen’s nowhere near done with her internal ranting when her phone beeps, pulling her focus as she moves to grab it.

@thegirlwithnoheart – hey. I’m just finishing up at work. I can’t believe I get to meet you soon. I’m so excited. Tonight’s the night, my dear friend.

One message from this person and it’s like everything with Judy has vanished, all the anger and frustration and guilt flying away and there’s already a smile on her face.

_This fucking woman…_

Jen can’t believe that this day has actually come.

She’s been so desperate to happen, _needing_ to just know absolutely everything about her friend.

It had been so hard to resist asking to meet every second of every day lately, but she was just too scared to make that step, too scared to push the other woman in case it wasn’t what she really wanted – because, honestly, Jen thinks that the other woman is _so_ lovely that she probably would have said yes even if its not what she wanted just so she didn’t let Jen down.

When Dear Friend actually messaged and asked to meet, Jen couldn’t hold back her instant reaction. She wanted to fucking scream ‘yes’.

And then finding out that she was so close, that she must have seen the woman somewhere before, around town? Well, it was too much. Henry had ended up coming over and asking if she was okay, clearly not convinced when she tried to say she was by how he snuggled into her side for the next hour.

Now that she’s actually about to meet Dear Friend though, now that it’s actually happening, she’s a little scared.

The other woman is just so, so amazing – if she is even half as amazing in person as she is in their messages, if she’s even half as lovely as Jen just knows she must be, why the fuck is she going to want to be anywhere near Jen?

It’s not that Jen has lied, not really. She’s just tried so hard to keep her hardness and anger out of their conversations – she knows that some of it has gone through, obviously, but nothing like how she can explode in person, like she exploded on Judy today. She knows that Dear Friend knows she’s not a perfect person, that it isn’t what she’s expecting at all from her, but Jen can’t help but be a little scared that she’s going to be a disappointment anyway.

And then there’s that deeper place in Jen, where all those feelings that she’s been so reluctant to acknowledge are hidden away.

The feelings that come with the weight in her chest when Dear Friend is particularly loving, with the drop of her stomach when she gets just a little bit flirty.

Jen doesn’t know what those feelings are going to do once she finally meets the other woman, once she gets to have her sitting right in front of her, but she’s pretty sure they’re only going to grow, to become something that she really won’t be able to ignore anymore once they’re face to face.

If she’s really being honest, Dear Friend is so incredible that Jen can’t really imagine any scenario where she doesn’t end up completely in love with her, no matter what.

_Fuck there’s a terrifying thought._

She takes a deep breath.

_Okay you’re gonna ignore that for now, Jen. You’ve gotta fucking meet her first._

And fuck, there’s a little part of her that is sort of scared that she’s going to fall head over fucking heels the second she sees her, and the other woman isn’t going to like her, her self-confidence still so low after everything her husband did. _Fuck you, Ted, for fucking me over so fucking much._

It’s all terrifying, everything about this is so fucking terrifying, but Jen just _needs_ to find out already.

She just needs to meet this person, and know her, and maybe hold her, because as much as Jen hates physical contact with fucking everyone, she doesn’t think she’s going to be able to resist if she’s got the right idea about just how touchy-feely Dear Friend is going to be.

She’s so goddamn fucking excited to find out.

A quick glance at the clock has her panicking a little - there’s only 10 minutes left until they are meant to meet. _Shit._

She still hasn’t replied to her last message, so she quickly fires off something.

@winemommy – You’ll probably beat me there, I might be a tiny bit late, sorry babe

@winemommy – I can’t fucking wait though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, putting in unnecessary Lorna scenes in one of my fics? Never…
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for taking the time to leave so many comments, I love them all 💖


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hii!
> 
> I spent so long deliberating on this chapter but finally couldn't take editing it anymore, so here you go 💖

“Enjoy your super important fucking night.” Jen says before leaving the back room of the art gallery.

Judy sighs, still for a moment, but eventually she grabs her bag and goes back into the bathroom to change and try to compose herself again.

She’s mortified by how she spoke to Jen earlier – she hates when she loses control over herself like that.

And Jen was so sweet in trying to apologise but honestly, Judy wasn’t really hearing any of it, still too lost in her head about their other fight to really take in what she said. She does appreciate the effort Jen went to – she was so clearly so far out of her comfort zone. They both were. It’s not really that surprising that they ended up arguing again when they were both so uncomfortable.

Judy’s just so embarrassed by how she spoke to Jen in the gallery that she’s really not sure how she’s ever going to face her again, how they’re ever going to have normal conversation.

_Well it’s not like she ever talks to you anyway, avoiding speaking to her forever probably isn’t going to be too difficult. You can just stay on the other side of the room at work and keep out of her way, it’ll be easy..._

It’s all ended up being such an unbearably messy situation.

_Okay, stop thinking about Jen, Judy. You need to focus on tonight._

The simple thought of what is coming that evening has Judy really smiling for the first time in nearly an hour.

She’s meeting Dear Friend tonight.

She’s meeting Dear Friend _soon_.

Judy looks back into the mirror in the bathroom, meeting her own eyes and watching as all the shame and embarrassment and self-hatred from how she acted earlier falls from her face, her eyes left so hopeful and excited. She quickly fixes her makeup and puts her new dress on, throwing her other things in the bag she brought with her to leave in the backroom overnight.

She sends a short message as she leaves the gallery, intending to walk the few blocks since her car is still so unreliable (and well, if she gets to spend a few more minutes in Dear Friend's company tonight if she drops her back here, _or maybe even home,_ she definitely won’t complain.)

@thegirlwithnoheart – hey. I’m just finishing up at work. I can’t believe I get to meet you soon. I’m so excited. Tonight’s the night, my dear friend.

A sudden bout of anxiety hits her after she presses send.

What if it all goes wrong? What if Dear Friend doesn’t like Judy in person, if she doesn’t match up to the other woman’s expectations?

From everything that they’ve said to each other, Judy is pretty certain that Dear Friend has the right idea of who she is. She doesn’t think anyone has ever known her better, has ever _understood_ her more, which is so weird but also just feels so _right_.

There’s still the worry that maybe she won’t be how the other woman imagined her to be though.

Because what if it’s all ruined when they meet in person? What if it all feels wrong and Dear Friend doesn’t like her and everything they’ve built up these past months falls apart?

Judy’s not sure she could manage without her now.

Its almost enough to make Judy want to not go, to consider cancelling, but the thought barely sits in her head for half a second before she knows that she just can’t do that. She won’t leave Dear Friend waiting for her, she cant do that to her - or to herself.

She needs this, needs Dear Friend, more than anything else she’s ever needed in her life.

Judy wonders sometimes if her friend knows just how important she is to her. If she knows how much she cares about her, how she loves her, because she does, she really, really does.

They really haven’t talked about feelings, they really are just friends, but they flirt almost constantly and Judy can’t help but hold out some hope that maybe, if they meet - especially with the knowledge that geography isn’t an issue anymore – maybe something can happen. She doesnt want to push or force anything though – she’ll take Dear Friend in whatever form she lets her.

Which is going to be face to face in just a few minutes.

The anxiety is slowly slipping away and the excitement is returning. She knows Dear Friend. She knows that whatever happens, it has to end okay. They’ve spoken everyday for months – there is no way that meeting in person can destroy that. Its just got to go well. It has to.

She’s barely a street from the bar when her phone finally beeps with another message from Dear Friend and she’s scrambling to look at it, almost walking into someone and dropping the phone in the process. She ends up stopping on the pavement, leaning a little against the nearest building to read her messages.

@winemommy – You’ll probably beat me there, I might be a tiny bit late, sorry babe

@winemommy – I can’t fucking wait though

Judy smiles. She can deal with waiting a few minutes. It’s nothing compared to how long she’s already had to wait.

Its barely a second before her phone pings again.

@winemommy - Actually we haven’t talked about how I’m gonna know it’s you?

Oh my god they totally haven’t. _How could we forget to talk about that??_ Judy’s not completely naive enough to think they would be able to recognise each other instantly, they should probably have a plan. She still wants to tease a little though.

@thegirlwithnoheart - What, no romantic ideas of being able to know who I am the second you see me?

@winemommy - We live in the same town, I’ve probably seen you loads of times. Fuck no.

Judy chuckles. Its almost sad how true that is. She looks down and sees she wore the perfect thing for giving visual clues to her identity.

@thegirlwithnoheart - Well I’ll be the one in a yellow dress, two glasses of red ready and waiting

@winemommy - What, no fucking red rose lying on the table? I think we have to call this off

@thegirlwithnoheart - I mean, if you want flowers you just have to say.

@winemommy - Ew gross no, go away.

 _Urgghhh who is this person and how can I get her to marry me,_ Judy thinks and all she can do is smile.

@winemommy - Gonna start driving now or I’m really going to be so fucking late. See you soon!

_See you soon._

Well if that doesn’t fill Judy down to her soul with delight nothing will.

She pushes off the wall to continue down to the bar, stopping only to quickly slip into the shop next door and pick something up.

*

Judy’s been sat at her table for 5 minutes before she sends a quick ‘I’m here' text. She knows Dear Friend said she might be a tiny bit late so she isn’t too worried, she just wants to make sure the other woman knows to look for her whenever she does arrive.

Another 10 minutes later, Judy is starting to get a little concerned.

She’s sat against the back wall of the bar, unobstructed view of its entrance, and she can’t help alternating between looking at the table and staring at the door.

Not that she will be able to really recognise her when she sees her. She might have joked to Dear Friend about it, but she really isn’t romantic enough to think that she could instantly know her.

She still keeps looking at the door just in case though.

Occasionally someone walks in – a teenage girl, definitely not Dear Friend. An old man, she really hopes it isnt him. Ooh that’s a woman about her age – oh but she’s walking over and kissing that other woman over there, okay then, not her.

Eventually Judy just can’t look anymore and goes back to staring at her wine glass, half empty at this point, imagining Dear Friend finally appearing and sitting in front of her and how amazing this night could go once she’s here.

She senses someone standing to the side of her table and swallows. Her nerves are suddenly back in full force, but not even they can stop her from looking up quickly, the purest hope-filled look on her face.

The face falls when she sees who it is, and she sighs before speaking tiredly;

“What are you doing here, Jen?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaannd here we are. 
> 
> Thank you again for all your comments and support!! You're all amazing 💖


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! 💖
> 
> Thank you to alllllll of you who have talked to me about this fic or commented or asked when I was finally going to update, I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.

Jen pulls into a space in the parking lot behind the bar and has to sit where she is for a second.

 _Holy fuck_ she’s nervous.

There’s some stupid little voice in her head telling her that it’s not too late to back out, but she’s a fucking badass woman who does what she wants – she’s not about to start listening to that tiny voice right now.

_It’s just a woman that you talk to sometimes online. What’s the big deal?_

She laughs out loud at herself.

It’s a big fucking deal.

She reaches up to the rear-view mirror to check her makeup quickly, then again, because she definitely didn’t focus enough the first time. There’s a tiny piece of hair out of place that she moves before adjusting the collar of her blazer a couple of times. Shit, maybe she should have gotten changed after work?

_Fuck, Jen, it’s too late to be panicking about this. Stop fucking doubting yourself._

Her phone beeps.

@thegirlwithnoheart - i'm here! by the back wall when you get here honey

_Oh fuck, okay._

Jen quickly checks the time and sees she’s only about five minutes late, so that’s good at least. She hasn’t made Dear Friend wait too long with all her freaking the fuck out.

_Here goes nothing, Jen. Deep breaths._

She walks through the door of the bar and stands to the side just a little, so that she can see the whole seating area and search for where Dear Friend in the yellow dress is.

Okay, and maybe she moves out of the way of the entrance so that Dear Friend won’t spot her, so she has a moment to find her and react and probably internally combust before she talks to her - maybe she’s a little afraid of seeing just how perfect she’s undoubtedly going to be – she’s never going to fucking admit any of that though.

Eyes are immediately scouring the room for yellow, and it barely takes a second before she spots someone. It’s Judy, from work, sat at a table near the back, dressed differently from the last time Jen saw her, the only person in the whole building wearing yellow.

Jen’s quickly searching back through the restaurant looking for anyone else. Her eyes widen when she realises that nope, there is no one else, because honestly, _who the fuck wears yellow?_

She’s glancing at Judy again, noticing the bottle of red and two poured glasses in front of her. There’s even a fucking rose – purple, not red, which is probably significant but who fucking knows why – on the table's edge, set like she’s trying to hide it away a little, maybe embarrassed about having it, but it’s still there, still waiting to be seen.

Jen’s heart stops fucking beating.

Shit. It’s her. It’s fucking her.

Judy is Dear Friend.

_Judy is Dear Friend._

_What the fuck? What the actual fucking fuck?_

Jen's frozen, mind not processing anything except increasingly explicit curses. She has no idea what the fuck to do, how the fuck to deal with Judy being the person she’s been talking to for fucking months.

She can’t take her eyes off of Judy though. The woman keeps glancing down at her phone, barely making it a few seconds before doing it again, and she just looks so hopeful and sad and –

Judy’s suddenly glancing up at the door again as it opens and another woman enters, and Jen desperately jumps out of the way, moving further towards the seats at the bar because she _cannot_ let Judy see her.

_What the fuck is going on?_

Judy can’t be Dear Friend.

Right?

She would fucking know if the person she has worked next to every fucking day for fucking months was the person she had been speaking to all this time, the person she’s practically half fucking in love with, wouldn’t she?

Except, she’s already been made very aware today of just how little she talks to Judy, how little they know about each other.

She thinks about all the things that annoy her about Judy, all the things that make her dislike her: the bubbly personality, the constant fucking smiling, the ‘caring' about people and trying to make an effort all of the time, the floral dresses and the bangs and the incessant cheeriness.

And fuck, if those aren’t all things that she knows, whether literally or instinctively just somehow _knows_ , about Dear Friend. Fuck if they’re not all part of the fucking insane reasons that she loves Dear Friend.

Maybe the idea that Judy has this crazy double meaning in her life is not quite so ridiculous after all.

Jen’s mind starts to wander back, trying to make sense of Judy and Dear Friend coexisting in one person.

How many hints must she have missed?

Obviously, she knows Dear Friend is an artist, she knew that from day one when Jen asked about the woman’s username in grief group, but she knows that she does other work too. It probably makes sense for the woman to work in an art gallery really, thinking about it, but Jen had always pictured her teaching or doing art therapy or something – anything other than having to interact with assholes like the ones her and Judy deal with everyday.

A memory flashes in Jen’s mind about a day a little after a month after Judy started working there. Jen had walked into the breakroom to see Judy placing something on the middle of a side table there.

“What the fuck is that?” Jen asked, gesturing to the pointy purple thing that the other woman had just put down.

Judy jumped a little but looked up smiling.

“Oh, hey Jen. It’s Amethyst”

“Okay… why is it here?”

“It’s a crystal. It should help people feel a little less stressed and hopefully more relaxed when they’re in here during a tough day.”

Jen rolled her eyes and snapped and told Judy to get rid of it, but even at the time, she was thinking how it reminded her of something that Dear Friend might do. She could picture her online friend’s house to be filled with crystals and all the rest of that shit and found herself not completely hating the idea of them quite as much if they’re associated with that woman.

Not that that helped the Judy in front of her in that moment.

Looking back now, she’s a fucking idiot.

Oh shit, the fucking bracelet, Jen thinks and wishes she could punch herself in the fucking face.

She remembers a night long ago, in one of her very first conversations with Dear Friend, back when they still used to waste time talking about Ted and Steve almost constantly, when the woman mentioned Steve’s blood jewellery.

@thegirlwithnoheart – he was a pretty good guy, you know, before… but even then, looking back, it all felt kinda… performative? I guess

Fuck did Jen know exactly what that felt like with Ted.

@thegirlwithnoheart – it was sort of like I was just another accessory to him and his family? Like I was just there to show off all the pretty jewellery they could afford or something and they never really cared about me?

@winemommy – Fuck babe. That’s so fucked up. Fuck that guy. I hope you burned everything he ever gave you. Or at least threw it in his fucking face and broke his nose with a giant diamond. What a fucking dick.

@thegirlwithnoheart – why is your instinct always to burn everything? Do you have people following you around with fire extinguishers or is the pyromania just between us?

@winemommy – it’s all for you babe. Though really, if you ever need shit setting on fire, I’m your woman.

@thegirlwithnoheart – you do light up my life

@winemommy – haha. seriously though, you should get rid of all his shit

@thegirlwithnoheart – I sold some of it, there’s some more I can’t look at yet, but I guess I sort of grew to like a little bit of it? I’m like, reclaiming it for myself or something. Mixed in with some silver and moonstones they kind of feel like mine, finally.

Fuck, Jen was so fucking awful to Judy about that bracelet she was wearing the first time they met – and anytime Judy wore half decent jewellery really, eying it so suspiciously wondering where the fuck it could come from. She based so many of her fucking assumptions on the woman being able to own these things without ever thinking about how fucking tragic the backstory could really be.

She’s such an awful judgemental asshole.

_Please don’t tell me I was so fucking horrible to Dear Friend._

She’s going to have so much fucking apologising to do if she has this right.

Jen thinks back to what she was expecting tonight, to all of the times that she had pictured Dear Friend and imagined finally being in front of her. She saw so many different hairstyles and outfits and faces that this woman could have – the images differed, but they were always so clear, like she could reach out and touch her, like she could hear Dear Friend's voice and smell her and know what being next to her might be like.

It’s weird though, she can’t see any of those women anymore, not clearly, they're all a distant blur.

When she tries to picture Dear Friend now, all she can see is Judy and her fucking gigantic friendly smile.

That’s the final straw really, of things falling into place. Whatever remaining doubts are flying away.

_Fuck, it really must be her._

_How did I not notice??_

Her mind starts spinning again, just a little, but then Jen looks up, and _fuck,_ she’s going to have to wait to fully figure all of this out later.

Because Judy _might_ be Dear Friend, but she’s also sat right fucking there looking so sad, still waiting for Jen to turn up, because Jen is so fucking late by now, and Jen can't let her look that sad for a second fucking longer.

Jen takes one final breath and starts walking towards the table, clearing her throat quietly when she reaches it.

She can barely breathe as Judy looks up hopefully, the woman’s face contorting in what is hopefully just confusion.

“What are you doing here, Jen?”

Jen thinks that a smile must be appearing on her own face, because yeah, she’s a blind idiot for not noticing before, but now that she _knows_ she can feel the love that she has for this woman inside of her as she stands before her. It’s like she’s really taking the other woman in for the first time.

“Hi Judy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah I’m just leaning into the cliffhangers now.
> 
> but Jen KNOWS finally!
> 
> okay I'm gonna run away now and go write chapter 8 before everyone starts yelling.
> 
> Thank you for reading! 💖


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally up!
> 
> To Cait, who has messaged me about 90 times a day on tumblr since the last chapter to ask me to update faster – it clearly did not work, but thank you anyway. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! 💖

“Hi Judy”

It’s quiet between them for a while. A long while. Jen's just sort of standing staring at Judy with something like a smile on her face. She’s not looking at her with distain or dismissal for what feels like the first time. Judy’s finding it real weird.

“Jen?” Judy has to ask eventually, because she has no idea what’s going on, why her co-worker is here, and she’s starting to feel really awkward. _Why does Jen look happy? Is she drunk?_

“Oh, umm… yeah. Sorry. Can I?” Jen gestures towards Dear Friend’s seat.

“NO!” Judy rushes to say, then sheepishly tries to explain herself. “Sorry, I’m, umm, I’m waiting for someone actually.”

She looks past Jen towards the door again, worried that she might have missed someone entering in these few minutes of conversation but there’s still no one there. She takes another swig of her wine, reaching for the bottle to fill her glass up again.

“About that…” Jen starts, moving to sit down anyway as if Judy had never said anything.

“-What, don’t tell me Lorna’s asking me to go back into work again? ‘Cause that’s not happening. You can go instead.” Judy interrupts, sort of proud of herself with how she’s not backing down for once. She knows Dear Friend would be, _will be_ , once she gets here.

“Lorna isn’t making us go back in, no.”

It’s quiet again, Jen still staring, and there’s something about it that makes all of the embarrassment she was feeling earlier about their argument start flooding back, Judy helpless to stop it even though its the last thing she wants to be feeling right now, on such a special night.

“Judy, I need to talk to you about something. It’s probably gonna come as quite a, umm, a shock, it fucking was to me too, you have no fucking idea, but you see...”

“Jen can you not right now? Can’t this wait?” Judy interrupts, really not paying attention to anything the other woman is saying anyway. She doesn’t want to hear Jen apologise or make her feel even worse how she acted before. She just wants to drink this wine and keep looking at the door until she doesn’t have to anymore.

“Oh, umm, not really, I don’t think? It’s kinda important.”

“Is it? I already feel bad enough about this afternoon without you bringing it up again, can’t we just never speak about it again?”

“No, that’s not why...” Jen starts then seems to change her mind, trying a different way into whatever she’s trying to say, or maybe she’s just distracted, who knows.

Jen ends up picking up Dear Friend’s flower, the rose Judy rushed to buy from the florist next door after their last few messages, figuring it’ll make her friend smile at least a little, even if she’s going to pretend to hate it.

“What’s this? Is it for a Dear Frien-“

“Jen! Give that back!” Judy hisses, reaching across the table in her desperation to get it back from Jen's hands, not wanting it to get ruined. She doesn’t register anything Jen says at all.

She feels embarrassed again, like Jen is teasing her for some reason but she isn’t in on why – Judy assumes it must just be Jen trying to make fun of her.

Jen does quickly give it back, which is something, Judy immediately hiding it away by her side so nothing can happen to it. All that excitement over with, Judy feels her adrenaline dropping again, back to the impatient numbness that has come to characterise this night.

She checks the door, again, and then her phone, again, but there’s still fucking nothing to see on either. _Where is she? Oh shit, what if her she got into an accident, or someone crashed into her car or something? What if she’s not okay and no one knows to call me, and I can’t help her, and the boys are all alone and…_

“Are you okay, Judy?” Jen asks, making Judy pause at how genuine she sounds, seeming to notice Judy’s rising anxiety, her continuous glances to her phone.

“Umm, yeah. It’s just, the person I'm meeting was meant to be here, well like an hour ago, and they still haven’t turned up. Last I heard they were about to drive over here, I guess I’m just getting a little worried that something might have happened.” Judy carefully responds, trying to keep the panic off her face, unsure what Jen’s reaction is going to be to anything she says anymore.

A weird look crosses Jen's face, one Judy has no idea how to begin deciphering, but she doesn’t give the blonde a chance to talk, continuing with her rambling.

“I just really need her to get here already, so I know she’s okay, so I can finally meet her."

 _Shit_ , _probably shouldn’t have said that. Maybe Jen didn’t notice?_

Jen clearly did.

“You don’t know who you’re meeting? She could be _anyone?_ ” Jen says, weird tone still in place that Judy is starting to really dislike. It doesn’t sound like teasing, not really, it sounds too layered, too intentionally deep for that, but what else could it be?

“Yeah, you think it’s stupid, I know.” Judy responds blankly, quickly gulping down some more of her wine.

“No, I don’t actually. It seems sweet.”

And then Jen is smiling at her again, and Judy can't help but return it, no matter how confused she is by it, by how it makes her feel. She quickly looks away again, pouring herself yet more wine – she’s definitely going to have to get another bottle for Dear Friend when she gets here.

“I see you’re drinking your feelings" Jen says, like she knows Judy, getting nothing more than a shrug in return. “I do the same. It’s why... umm it’s actually why I suggested coming here to the person I’m meeting tonight.”

“Ahh, right, your super important plans for the evening...”

“Oh, Jude,” Jen says after a moment, and Judy has to be missing fucking something because why is Jen suddenly acting like she knows something Judy doesn’t, like they’re friends suddenly. Isn’t Jen meant to hate her – why is she giving her nicknames that literally no one else uses anymore?

The confusion and the embarrassment are getting to be too much, and she’s still more than a little concerned that Dear Friend could show up at any second and not find her because there’s someone else sitting at her table, so Judy tries again.

“Jen, can you just go, please?” she says, practically begging when Jen turns to her looking a little shocked and doesn’t leave. “Please? My friend could be here any second and I don’t want her to see you here.”

“Judy, just listen to me for a moment, the person you’re meeting, the Dear Fr-" Jen tries, looking her right in the eyes, speaking with so much meaning behind her words, clearly trying to communicate something.

Judy decides to try something different, something to get a rise out of Jen, just like all those times she’s accidentally triggered the woman’s anger at work and she’s stormed away and left, interrupting her again.

“- Come on, Jen, will you just leave? Don’t you have someone else to go and torment?”

Jen flinches a little, but seems to accept the truth to it, shockingly not arguing back. “That’s... fair. Hurtful, but fair.”

But then Jen is smiling at her again, still not moving anywhere, and _what is going on, she needs to go before Dear Friend can get here._

Eventually, after long while later of the same back and forth, Judy eventually gets Jen to leave, sighing in relief as she finally stands up. Jen moves slowly, reluctantly, like leaving is the very last thing that she wants to do, keeping turning back around to look at Judy as if she still wants to say something, but Judy is just willing her to be gone already.

The second Jen is finally out of sight, Judy turns her attention to her phone.

@thegirlwithnoheart – are you okay honey? where are you? please tell me you’re not hurt

There’s no immediate response, leaving Judy to go back to staring at the door, twiddling her now empty again wine glass in her hands.

A waiter shows up after a few minutes to ask if she wants, and it’s not until then that Judy realises the wine bottle is empty too – all that remains is Dear Friend’s still full glass, still so untouched.

“Umm, I’m not sure. My friend will hopefully be here any moment, so we can order more then-”

Judy’s phone beeps, and she dives far too enthusiastically for it, somehow managing to hit the waiter in the process but not stopping to apologise to him for what is probably the first time in her entire life in her desperation to see the message.

@winemommy – I’m so sorry baby. The boys got into this huge fight and Chris couldn’t handle it so I’ve had to go pick them up. You have no idea how much I fucking wanted to spend some time with you.

It’s so short, so simple, for all of the worry and stress Judy has been sat here going through, but it’s comforting at least to know that she wasn’t completely forgotten about, that her friend is alive and breathing and fine.

Judy finds the message kinda weird if she’s honest – in all of the time she’s been talking to Dear Friend, in the hours and hours and hours of conversations that they’ve had about Henry and Charlie, the other woman’s never really mentioned her kids fighting. Minor disagreements about what to watch on TV or what pizza toppings to have, but with their age difference, they mostly keep out of each other’s way doing their own thing, Judy always thought.

It’s concerning to think that something more serious could have happened between them really.

@thegirlwithnoheart – oh no! I hope they’re both okay! don’t worry about me for a second. maybe message me later, once they’re settled?

She tries to keep any disappointment out of her message – she’s devastated, of course, that their meeting isn’t going to happen yet, but she’s not about to put any of that on a woman who is just trying to be a good single mom.

With that, Judy starts to move as if to grab her things and leave, suddenly noticing the waiter still standing at the end of her table, glaring a little.

“Oh, umm, I’m so sorry. For hitting you I mean. And almost running out, that too. That would’ve been awful, and I definitely would have come back tomorrow as soon as I realised, I really would… what I mean is, can I get the cheque?”

A few minutes later and Judy is finally outside waiting for an uber. It’s already so dark outside, so late by now, so she’s not going to chance walking back to her car – she drank so much more than she expected to anyway, there’s no way she’s going to risk driving. Her phone beeps again just as the uber pulls up.

@winemommy – sure thing babe

*

@winemommy – I’m really sorry about tonight baby.

Judy jumps when she gets the message, coughing on the weed she was in the middle of inhaling.

_Since when does Dear Friend call me baby?_

She thinks about it for a second and decides she kinda likes it, maybe a little too much. It feels _different_ from the normal ‘babe’, a little more direct.

@thegirlwithnoheart – it’s okay. how are the boys?

@winemommy – it’s really not fucking okay, you don’t have to say that

@thegirlwithnoheart – yes, it is. We can just try again another day. now please will you tell me if Henry and Charlie are okay?

There’s a long break, but eventually Dear Friend does reply, then again, like an afterthought before Judy can get a chance to ask what was wrong tonight.

@winemommy – they’re fine now, they’re in bed.

@winemommy - they’ll never play another video game as long as they live though.

Judy laughs, knowing that won’t be true, that her friend really is so soft with her boys. It still feels so tense between the two women though, and she hates it, so as much as she wants to know more, she figures it can wait until tomorrow and decides to try to lighten things up for now.

@thegirlwithnoheart – what are you going to do with all their games? are you gonna try playing them again? see if you can survive past the first thirty seconds this time?

@winemommy – oh fuck you, I lasted a whole three minutes last time, thank you

@thegirlwithnoheart – mmm, just what a girl likes to hear

@winemommy – that’s not what I…

_She’s so easy, I love it._

Then the other thought, the one Judy doesn’t want to be thinking right now, pops back up again.

_Why couldn’t I have just gotten to meet her tonight?_

@winemommy – I’m gonna go and finally get some wine, wanna watch facts of life for a bit before bed?

Judy smiles. At least they can still do this tonight. At least nothing has changed between them

@thegirlwithnoheart – obviously, oooh I love this episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now it gets messy :) 
> 
> This was a sad chapter, I’m sorry. 
> 
> Next chapter is done so it will be up later this weekend, and then we get to the really fun chapters. We should be cliffhanger free for a while now.
> 
> Thank you for reading! And for all of your comments, I love all of you 💖


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! 
> 
> I don't know what to say about this one, it's mostly filler before the big chapter next, but I hope you like it! 💖

For the first time in months, Jen isn’t feeling excited to look at her phone when she wakes up.

Her hand instinctively reaches over to the pillow next to her anyway, just like every other morning, the pillow being where her phone inevitably ends up every night when she falls asleep while talking, but she stops herself before she can actually pick it up.

She knows there’s going to be another good morning message from Dear Friend.

She can’t bare the thought of it.

Jen rolls onto her back instead, staring at the ceiling and trying to keep her thoughts empty for just a few moments longer. She’s dreading having to process everything that happened last night, the finding out about Judy, the leaving her, the _lying._ Maybe she can jam it all down somewhere and never fucking think about any of it ever a-fucking-gain?

Because really, _what the fuck happened yesterday?_

Fucking Judy is Dear Friend, that’s still not really sunk in yet.

Judy, the woman who does nothing but irritate Jen, who is too friendly and nice and annoying, is the one who knows all of Jen’s secrets, who has talked to her while she cried, who has given her so much advice and support with Henry and Charlie. The one who has made her laugh and smile more in the last few months than Jen has in the 40 fucking years before.

The one that Jen needs in her life.

The one she loves.

The thing is, Jen really did go over to that table with good intentions, wanting to let Judy know who she was, even if it fucked everything up. She really wanted to be honest, for fucking once, she really tried to find a way into telling the other woman, but Judy just never let her fucking speak.

_Honestly Jude, of all the fucking times to finally stand up to me you had to choose right then? Maybe if you could have just let me fucking talk none of this would have fucking happened._

No, that’s not fucking fair. She doesn’t want to blame Judy. Why would Judy ever expect that Jen is Dear Friend, when the two sides of her are so conflicting, so different in how they’ve acted towards Judy up until now? Why the fuck _would_ she expect Jen to be the person that she actually likes, that she shares everything with everyday?

She can’t really blame Judy for not reacting well when she doesn’t even know what she’s reacting to.

If anything, the thing Jen regrets most is not just speaking the fuck up, not just forcefully coming out and saying what she needed to, not just erupting at Judy and dealing with the consequences later, like she normally would.

A ‘shut the fuck up Judy and fucking listen, I'm Dear Friend! I'm the fucking one you’ve been talking to!' yelled over Judy's babbling probably would’ve worked just fine.

But Jen was just so aware yesterday of how she’s acted with Judy like that a hundred times before. She didn’t want talking like that again to be how she introduced herself as Dear Friend, how they started whatever it is that this fucking is, if it is something.

_Oh fuck you really can’t be thinking about stuff like that right now Jen. It’s Judy. JUDY. Who knows if she’d have any fucking interest in you – surely she would have shown it by now if she did? Maybe if you’d stopped being so fucking awful to her all the time and actually spent more than ten seconds in her presence...._

Jen has to force herself to stop going down _that_ spiral, because nothing good will come from there.

It’s barely another second before her mind is back on last night and she’s cursing her existence again.

She didn’t tell Judy about being Dear Friend, which was one thing, one big fucking train wreck of a thing.

But then she lied, oh god, why did she fucking have to lie? Why did she have to fucking use her fucking sons, bring the boys into all this gigantic fucking mess she’s created? There’s going to be a special place in hell for her, that’s for fucking sure, after all this.

She just couldn’t let Judy think that her Dear Friend just hadn’t turned up though, couldn’t leave her there worrying or embarrassed like that. And she was so lovely and understanding when Jen sent her the lies about the kids fighting and that somehow just makes it so much fucking worse

She didn’t actually have the boys, they were still at Christopher’s, so she spent fucking ages when she got home, drinking wine and starting messages, trying to figure out what the fuck to say or do – and somehow the lies just continued.

They talked for fucking _hours_ , about stupid tv shows and weird candy and the best place in town to get 2am Chinese food, and it was so _normal_ that sometimes Jen almost forgot, like she was just talking to Dear Friend, her best friend, like she does every single night. And then Jen would feel fucking awful, the realisation that this is _Judy_ that she’s talking to flaring up again in her head like a fucking warning siren.

_What the fuck is wrong with her._

And now she has to face her at work today, once she finally peels herself out of bed, and she has no idea how she’s going to be able to do that, how she’s going to be able to pretend that everything is okay and normal and that she doesn’t know fucking _everything_ about Judy all because _she fucking lied._

It’s not until she’s finally dressed and about to head out the door, waiting until the last possible second for once, that Jen finally decides to look at her phone, knowing it will drive her crazy all day if she doesn’t.

@thegirlwithnoheart – good morning dear friend! I hope you managed to get enough sleep, that was kinda late, even for us. I hope your day is lovely and hangover free!

@thegirlwithnoheart – I know you’re probably still annoyed at them but give the boys a hug from me before they leave this morning okay? don't be too hard on them. I’m sure everything will go better with them today.

@thegirlwithnoheart – maybe tonight we can talk about rearranging meeting up? it doesn’t have to be soon, if you’ve gotta be at home, but I’d still really love to see you sometime. or I could come to you? that might be weird. anyway, let me know, anytime, I'm free whenever.

@thegirlwithnoheart – well that made me sound fucking desperate. Ignore that. guess it’s a good thing I know how much you wanna meet me too huh? talk to you later sweetie.

Yeah, maybe not looking would have been better. _Shit._

@winemommy – yeah, sure. talk to you later babe.

*

Jen gets to work and Judy isn’t there.

She almost has a fucking panic attack waiting for her to walk through the door, Jen somehow still arriving first even when she left so much later than usual. Then it’s 9 o’clock and she still isn’t there – which isn’t terribly unusual, sure, with how frequently Judy isn’t on time, but fuck Jen is going insane here.

It’s another half an hour until Jen is enough of a mess to go and talk to Ben and Karen.

“Hey" Jen says as she awkwardly approaches the two on the other side of the room.

Both of their jaws drop a little in shock, looking to each other as if to say, ‘is she really talking to us??’ Jen can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“Oh, umm, hi? Jen?” Ben replies eventually.

“Any idea where Judy is today?” Jen asks, skipping right to the point, not bothering with any false pleasantries. They’d probably just find it too weird if she started asking them about their lives now.

She must leave something too unusual in her voice, probably sounding too concerned or interested, because Ben is immediately looking suspicious.

“Why are you asking after Judy?” Ben says like he’s trying to defend the other woman, which is fucking ridiculous. _Jesus Christ, I’m not going to kill her or anything, she’s just late for work and I’m a concerned co-worker, come on._

“I was just wondering. She should’ve been here 40 minutes ago.”

“I’m not sure why it matters-” Ben starts, but Karen quickly interrupts, filling Jen in.

“- she called in sick. She said she had a rough night or something, but if you ask me, I think she’s probably just hung over – ooh I wonder if she spent the night with that woman she was meeting. She could still be at her house, you know...?” Karen says, her voice rising suggestively. Awkwardly.

“What, umm, what?” Jen says, trying to hide her freaking out. _Karen and Ben know about Dear Friend, about_ me?

“Judy doesn’t seem like the type to lie about being ill. And it wasn’t a date, remember.” Ben joins in, obviously distracted from his suspicions of Jen enough now that he can gossip.

“Well, Judy said she wasn’t sure” Karen replies, then turns to Jen. “She really didn’t tell us much, just that she was getting drinks with someone. I told her to order the orange wine, but she said her _‘friend’_ likes red.”

Jen nods a tiny bit in acknowledgement, Karen looking delighted that she’s getting to talk to her like this. Jen sorta wants to kill her for gossiping about Judy, but she’s too fucking interested in the conversation to stop it just yet.

“I hope it went well; she deserves that after everything.” Ben joins in again, Jen sitting back and watching.

“Me too – I don’t know though, she sounded kinda upset on the phone earlier.”

“She did? Oh, maybe the date didn’t go so well then. That’s a shame”

“Do you think it was a date, then?”

Jen blocks them out, not really able to focus on Ben and Karen’s incessant chatter properly after hearing that Judy sounded upset. _Is she fucking upset about last night? Why didn’t she fucking say anything earlier?_

The two in front of her are still talking, still _gossiping_ , and Jen can’t take it anymore.

“Okay, enough! Don’t you have something better to be doing than nattering about Judy like two old ladies?” she snaps, but it doesn’t really cause the reaction she was hoping for. Ben and Karen just walk away, giggling and quickly resuming their chatter in a different corner of the room. _Oh fuck, don’t tell me I’ve lost my ability to scare people now too?_

Jen spends the next couple hours in a daze. It’s really quiet so at least that’s something, she doesn’t have to put on a false smile and pretend to be nice to customers. The couple of people that do come into the gallery she glowers at until they change directions and head towards someone else.

She can’t manage to focus on anything other than Judy, on why she isn’t here. She certainly isn’t with her ‘date’ from last night, and Jen doesn’t think she was drunk enough to really be hungover last night, their late-night messages too coherent, so obviously Karen’s theories are wrong. Maybe she is just sick? _But why wouldn’t she have told me, at least Dear Friend me, if she was?_

Eventually, Jen can’t just stand here anymore, and has to send Judy a couple of messages, sneakily grabbing her phone from the back to use on the floor of the shop. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing that Judy isn’t here in person to see her doing that, after yelling at her for doing the same thing so many times before. Fuck, she’s such a hypocrite.

 _Oh my god,_ the realisation that she was making Judy stop messaging herself all the time suddenly hits her and she wants to scream. It’s too fucking ridiculous, everything about this situation is too complicated and insane to be real.

_Oh fuck, I’m going to have to start keeping my phone on silent all the time so Judy won’t notice – wait, why the fuck am I planning stuff like that as if I’m gonna keep lying for a long time, I’m definitely fucking not._

Judy responds to the text almost immediately.

@winemommy – hey babe

@thegirlwithnoheart – hi?

@winemommy – you busy?

@thegirlwithnoheart – not really, what’s up? Are you okay? you never message during the day.

@winemommy – yeah, I’m fine. just bored, I guess. distracted.

Jen doesn’t really know what to say, how to ask ‘where are you and how are you really’ without revealing that she knows who she is and that she isn’t at work. Maybe if she just keeps talking it’ll come up somehow?

@thegirlwithnoheart – I’m not sure messaging me is helping with your focus. what’s distracting you?

@winemommy – you

Jen sends it without thinking and instantly regrets it.

@winemommy – and the boys, I mean, obviously

@thegirlwithnoheart – obviously

It’s a normal conversation, really, but normally Dear Friend would be flirting with her by now, or at least be teasing her for being so open and soft. It only makes Jen more sure that something must be really wrong.

@thegirlwithnoheart – anyway, I thought you couldn’t talk while you were at work

_Finally, a fucking opening to ask what’s wrong._

@winemommy – I thought you couldn’t either

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah well, I’m not at work today. took the day off

@winemommy – is everything okay, baby?

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah, of course. I just felt kinda creative this morning, wanted some time to work on my paintings again before I lost that mood.

Well, clearly Judy is lying to someone, but which version of Jen is she lying to? _Shit this is too fucking weird._

@winemommy – what are you painting today?

@thegirlwithnoheart – the usual

@winemommy – you’ve still never shown me what the usual looks like, you know

@thegirlwithnoheart – one day

Jen almost gets caught on her phone by a customer, definitely losing yet another commission today as they eagerly go over to Karen after Jen glares, pointing at the most expensive painting in the building, and _fuck¸ that money would have been good,_ but she can’t really bring herself to care when she looks back at her phone, continuing to type some more messages.

@winemommy – I kinda wanted to ask, have you ever tried painting me? I know you still don’t know what I look like but…

@thegirlwithnoheart – would you like me to draw you like one of my french girls, Rose?

Oh, fuck. _Thank god._ Jen doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to see shitty flirting from the fucking Titanic movie on her phone screen.

@winemommy – fuck off, I didn’t mean nudes, jeez

@winemommy – you didn’t answer my question though babe

@thegirlwithnoheart – maybe. maybe not. there might be a couple sketches somewhere…

*

Lorna appears just as they’re closing the gallery for lunch, cornering Jen before she can make her escape.

“Yes, Lorna?” Jen says after a moment. She can’t fucking deal with her mother-in-law today.

“Really, Jennifer? That’s all you have to say for yourself? A mannequin would have been more use out here this morning.”

“You haven’t even been out here all day, how would you know?”

“Well you know me. Eyes and ears everywhere.”

“I’m just having a bit of a bad day.”

“Yes, well, I imagine that must happen when you wake up to an empty house because you’ve sent my grandchildren away again so you can go running around town again.”

_Oh, fuck this._

“I’m not doing this right now, Lorna.” Jen says dryly and starting to walk away.

“You’re not doing much of anything today Jennifer. Go home.”

“Excuse me?” Jen says, spinning back around.

“You heard me. Don’t bother coming back in for the rest of the day. We’ll cope without you. Maybe tomorrow you’ll have a better attitude.” And with that, Lorna walks off, Jen making vague strangling motions towards the woman’s back as she tries to remind herself that _murder is bad._

_Well, now you have four hours before you have to go and pick the boys up, Jen. What now?_

Jen’s phone beeps and she knows exactly what she wants to do.

She walks into the backroom to grab her stuff, spotting Ben and Karen sitting at the table in the corner as usual. She heads over to them, trying to put on a polite, only slightly pained smile.

_Fuck she hates needing things from people._

“Any chance you two know where Judy lives?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be longer but I'm trying not to leave it on cliffhangers now, not like, cliffhanger-cliffhangers anyway haha
> 
> The next chapter is my favourite and I can't wait for you to read it, it'll be up as soon as it's done.
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely comments once again, it means the world! 💖


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This took a long time, I know, this chapter was rough. I still don’t know if this is quite everything that I wanted to be, but I can’t stare any longer so here we go. Jen and Judy time.

Judy makes it all the way through her bedroom door into the main room of her apartment before she admits defeat and realises that yeah, she’s not going to be able to go into work today.

The room's still spinning when she lays down on the couch. It happens sometimes, that Judy is just kinda knocked out after really big days – all the emotion and expectation crashing down from yesterday must have worn her out more than she thought.

The idea of going into work like this, of having to answer Ben & Karen’s excited questions about her ‘date' (as they decided it was) last night, sounds like total hell. She hates that she thinks about spending time with her friends like that, but it does.

She just needs to take a day and rest. Thankfully, it's Friday, and so she has until Monday until she has to face working again.

Judy’s glad she sent her morning messages to dear friend before she tried to move out of bed – trying to type all that out now wouldn’t be so much fun.

She ends up having to call Ben when Lorna doesn’t answer to let someone know that she isn’t going to be there. She doesn’t want to call the gallery and risk having to talk to Jen again, not after everything yesterday. She was so awful to Jen, trying to make her leave, so unfair to her, even if Judy never really understood why the other woman was there in the first place.

Something out there must really be looking out for her, letting her get a whole day of rest without having to worry about what she’s going to say to Jen the next time she sees her.

Judy spends the morning dozing in front of the tv, eventually being woken up by her phone beeping with a super rare daytime message from Dear Friend. It’s weird, unexpected, but she’s not going to complain about getting more time with her best friend.

Of Judy of course ends up lying, not wanting to worry the other woman by saying she doesn’t feel so great, and really not wanting her to think that any of it is her fault when she had her kids to look after.

So she lies and says she’s painting – she has been thinking about taking day off to start painting more again, even if she always dismissed that thought so she could save her vacation days in case she needed to travel to meet Dear Friend face to face. It's a believable story though.

Even with the lies, it’s such a relief, getting to talk to her friend, so much better than just lying down feeling sorry for herself, even if looking at a phone screen this much is making her head ache infinitely more.

The messages start to fizzle out around lunchtime, the inverse of a normal day, and it’s been long enough for Judy to just start to fall asleep again when there’s a knock on her apartment door.

Judy carefully scoops herself off the sofa, half her pile of blankets falling to the floor forgotten as she moves as fast as she can. She’s clearly still quite slow; whoever is waiting for her is knocking again, louder this time, before she can make the twelve shuffled steps it takes to cross her tiny apartment.

“Jen?” Judy says once she’s finally figured out how the locks on the door work enough to pull it open. This standing and thinking thing is a lot of effort today.

Her co-worker, the very last person she wanted to see today, is standing there, obviously dressed for work in another one of her shirt and blazer combos – or maybe that really is just who Jen is. Judy’s not going to pretend to have her figured out at all yet. There’s a box in Jen’s hands, but Judy’s barely registered that when Jen starts talking.

“Judy. Hi.” Jen exhales, like she’s nervous or something.

“Hi?” Judy responds. She’s very confused about why Jen is standing outside her home. _How does she even know where I live? Why would she come here?_

“You, umm, you weren’t at work, and I just wanted to check on you, make sure you’re okay.”

Judy can’t help but feel suspicious. Why would Jen be interested in her now? It has to be something to do with work, that’s the only thing that makes sense – they’ve never spoken about anything else. Did Lorna send her?

“Did you come to check if I’m really sick?” Judy says, instantly regretting the tiny bit of harshness that was in her voice, but needing to know anyway – she’ll force herself out of the door if she needs to, if it means she doesn’t lose a job she actually likes. _My bag’s just there, where are my shoes?_

She turns a little, trying to look around for them, and wobbles, Jen reaching out and grabbing her arm to steady her. _Oh. I forgot that sudden movements were still a bad idea._

Jen laughs gently, sounding kind somehow, but doesn’t let go of her arm. “No, I would say that’s pretty obvious. I just wanted to see how you are. To, umm, to see if you need anything, if I can do anything. You weren’t at work…” Jen trails off. She sounds a little pained, a little uncomfortable, but not as much as Judy would have expected for Jen to be when really talking to someone.

Some horrible part of Judy tells her she should slam the door in the other woman’s face, knowing that that is what Jen would probably do if Judy ever dared to show up at her house unannounced. She almost wants to argue, to tell Jen just to go, to argue that she just must be there with bad intentions – to get her in trouble with Lorna or to yell at her or embarrass her more or something.

But Jen just looks so soft and awkward that she can’t bring herself to do it. She tries to imagine arguing, making her leave again, but she pictures Jen with a terrible look on her face if she does that. It feels sort of like she would be kicking a puppy when she’s down, which is such a strange thing to be thinking about Jen, but she can’t push the thought away now it’s there.

And really, Judy is just so tired of their whole dynamic – Jen’s the one that starts it all, that insists upon fighting and arguing and being mean whenever they’re in the same space and that has never been what Judy has wanted. She would much rather be nice to everyone, always, but she gets so defensive sometimes with Jen – which actually is really unlike her. It’s very strange for her to be standing up for herself with someone, she thinks, knowing it’s all down to Dear Friend that she’s able to stand up for herself more now, knowing she doesn’t _always_ have to let people treat her like shit.

_Maybe Jen is tired of it too, and that’s why she’s here, she’s making an effort?_

Judy sways again, and Jen’s holding her tighter, gesturing inside the apartment with her other hand, the one holding the mystery box.

“Can I-”

“Oh. Umm... yeah. Okay.”

Jen helps Judy back inside, heading straight for the sofa that has very clearly been Judy’s home for the day.

“Here you go. Sit down. You need to rest,” Jen says in a soothing voice, picking some of the blankets up from the pile on the floor to wrap around Judy and helping her lean back against the arm of the chair. She looks at the empty coffee table. “Have you had anything to drink today?”

“Oh, umm. Not much. I haven’t really moved around much.” Judy admits.

“I’m going to go get you something, is that okay?” Jen replies, a little awkwardly discarding the box in her hand onto the table and walking the few steps to the kitchen to start looking around before Judy can respond.

“You don’t have to do that, Jen. I can manage-”

“- I know, but I’m going to. I want to.” And Jen is smiling at her again, all stupidly soft and unlike how Jen has always looked past her that it makes Judy feel odd. “No one should be sick without someone to look after them.”

It turns out that Jen is excellent at looking after sick people, much to Judy’s now pretty much ever-present shock. She really did not have the other woman down as the type to fuss with blankets and already know what sort of tea to make Judy without even having to ask.

“How are you feeling, are you warm enough? You don’t have a temperature, that’s good.”

“I’m okay, Jen, really. You don’t need to do all this.”

“Please will you just let me help?” Jen says, stopping what she’s doing to look imploringly at Judy, who finds herself nodding despite herself.

Judy’s still feeling a little embarrassed, a little uncomfortable after everything, but she’s somehow slowing relaxing the longer Jen is here, walking around her apartment and caring for her.

Eventually, after Jen’s got her warm and comfortable and hydrated and there’s not much else to do, Jen perches herself on the corner of the sofa, pretty much as far away from Judy as possible. Judy knows that Jen’d be sat anywhere else if she could, if there was more than just one big sofa and a couple of stools at the kitchen counter in the apartment. The whole thing would be comical if it wasn’t so awkward.

“What are we watching?” Jen asks, gesturing to the tv hesitantly.

Judy’s head whips around.

“You’re staying?” She figured the blonde would have wanted to run out and get as far away from Judy as possible again, now that her responsibilities to her co-worker or whatever else this is are over.

“Don’t look at me like that. You almost passed out fucking standing before. I’m not leaving yet.”

_Oh. Okay. I guess she doesn’t think her responsibilities are over yet. Doesn’t she have more important things to be doing than sitting here with me?_

Judy makes herself settle back down anyway, thinking for a second before she chooses something to put on. If Jen is determined to stay, she’s not going to argue anymore.

She picks a documentary she tried to watch with Dear Friend last week, one the other woman hated so much she wouldn’t stop messaging complaining and joking about it. It had entertained Judy endlessly at the time, but it also made her miss most of a show she actually did really want to watch.

“Is this okay?” Judy asks.

She watches Jen swallow, almost like she’s bracing herself or something, and Judy prepares for a negative response, but Jen quickly smiles and gives a “it’s fine.”

The next half hour finds them both getting more comfortable. Jen finally leans back on the chair after a whole twenty minutes of sitting ramrod straight and awkwardly perching on the large couch’s corner, much closer to Judy now but still far enough away that they’re not touching.

Judy finds she relaxes once Jen starts talking, only light chit-chat about the doc they’re watching, nothing more, but Jen seems sort of interested and definitely knowledgeable about the subject. It’s yet another thing that surprises Judy, finding she actually kind of likes being around Jen when she’s like this and not yelling. It’s sort of nice, just them having a gentle chat.

After a while, Jen leans forward suddenly, picking Judy’s baby blanket up from where it must have snuck under the coffee table when Judy got up to answer the door.

Jen just holds it in her hands, staring at the embroidered name, and Judy’s sure that she’s going to go back to mean Jen, that she’s going to tease her for having something so sentimental. Judy tries to brace herself; she’s not sure she can handle having someone make fun of one of the like three things she really cares about in this apartment – the other two the sketchbook and half-finished painting that are hidden inside her bedroom.

Jen just hands it to her though, and if anything, the blonde seems to have softened even more. It almost looks like there’s tears in the woman’s eyes, but that doesn’t make any sense, not for someone who doesn’t know the meaning behind the blanket or its importance to Judy or how much she had to go through to get it back from Steve.

It’s confusing, how kind Jen is being. It doesn’t match with anything Judy expected from her after knowing her for as long as she has.

They sit watching tv for a while, but eventually, just like they always do, Judy’s thoughts start to stray back to Dear Friend, instinctively picking up her phone as soon as she thinks about the woman.

There are still no new messages, a little weird after the excitement of the morning, especially when Judy knows that she’s been on her lunchbreak and hasn’t said anything.

She can’t help but wonder why Dear Friend has suddenly gone silent after speaking so much today. It’s been so lovely to get to talk to her for such a long time for once, even if Judy feels like she’s lied, like she’s hiding something when she’s trying to pretend that she’s not at hope upset and emotionally drained after their failed meeting, that she’s as upbeat and positive as ever.

As much as she’s actively trying not to think about it, she's a little worried that maybe there was more to why Dear Friend cancelled than she said, that maybe she didn’t want to meet her as much as she thought, or actually has no interest in Judy at all.

It’s ridiculous, completely ridiculous, just Judy being silly, because she knows Dear Friend wouldn’t lie about her kids like that, knows that Dear Friend still spent half last night (and this morning too) talking to Judy.

She just needs this to be over with – for them to meet and hold each other and finally fully know each other. For Judy to finally know if what she thinks has been building between them is real, to know whether Dear Friend _feels_ the same way as her.

Judy must have been contemplating her phone for longer than she thought, about to send another message, because Jen is looking at her concerned.

“Is everything okay? You’ve gone all quiet again. Do you need some painkillers or something?”

“I’m fine!” Judy responds, a little too upbeat for either of them to believe.

“… Judy.”

“Really. It’s okay. It’s just…” Judy thinks about whether she really wants to share more, but they’ve gotten this far today, and Jen’s being so nice, she thinks maybe it’ll be good to talk to someone. Especially someone that isn’t going to get over-excited, like Karen and Ben. “The woman I was meeting last night. She, never showed, she had to cancel, and now she hasn’t responded to my messages in a little while. We were talking earlier, but…”

Jen seems to make a decision, turning quickly to really face Judy.

“Judy. I… I should probably tell you something.”

Judy tries to sit up at the seriousness in Jen’s voice, instantly feeling all kinds of woozy again at the sudden movement. Jen’s immediately up and helping her lean back down against the sofa again, kneeling on the floor next to her.

“How are you so good at this, caring for people I mean?” Judy whispers curiously once she’s feeling better.

“Unexpected, right? When I’m such an asshole most of the time.” Jen says. Judy doesn’t think she likes self-deprecating smile on the woman’s face.

“That wasn’t what I-”

“-It’s okay. I wasn’t good at it at first. It isn’t natural, I’ve just had a lot of practice.”

It’s quiet for a minute, Jen smoothing down the blanket over Judy a couple of times before she continues.

“My, umm. My Mom. She had cancer when I was a kid. And then, well…”

Judy waits for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry, Jen.”

Jen hums, but doesn’t offer anymore, moving back to her place on the other end of the couch.

It’s awkward again – Judy assumes that Jen must feel weird after opening up more, maybe about what else she wanted to say – and she doesn’t want that awkwardness, not now. Jen opened up to her, even if it was only a little, so Judy figures it’s only fair to try to do the same. Maybe talking about what’s bothering her might help a little bit?

“I, umm. I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have been so rude to you and kept asking you to leave like that, you were just trying to be nice. I was just so looking forward to finally meeting my friend, I… Well.”

Jen’s looking at her, eyes fixed, the attention so strange it makes Judy both too nervous to and more eager to talk.

 _“_ We met in this support group thing online, we've never met in person. And last night was the first time I was meant to see Dear Fr- we call each other Dear Friend. You probably think that’s stupid.”

It’s a few seconds before Jen responds. “...no, I don’t. I think it’s kind of sweet actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a little fucking gross, but yeah. It sounds kinda nice.”

Judy smiles.

“Anyway… yeah. We were meant to meet yesterday. It’s been such a long time coming, you have no idea. We only just found out that we both live in the same town and it just seemed so perfect and like it was meant to be or something?” The smile slowly drops from Judy’s face. “and then—”

“—and then she didn’t show herself.”

“Yeah… and it’s not like I’m mad at her or anything, I could never be angry at her! She had to be there for her kids – she has these two sons, they’re amazing actually, such wonderful kids. I can’t wait to meet them too someday.”

“—Judy—” Jen tries to interrupt.

“—and Dear Friend herself is just, she’s like full chef’s kiss level of perfection—” Judy continues.

“Jude.” Jen exhales, so quietly.

“—and I really like her. I think I might be kinda a little bit in love with her actually, but that’s so not the point here. What I’m trying to say is that I’m just really confused by everything. She was messaging like normal last night, but then today she’s being all weird and different and I just won’t know what’s going on. It feels like something’s changed. I’m kinda worried she’s changed her mind, that she doesn’t want to meet me anymore, or doesn’t want to talk to me at all and doesn’t know how to tell me…”

Judy trails off, finally looking back up at Jen to see her frozen, mouth open and eyes a little wide.

“Was that too much? Sorry, I haven’t really had anyone to talk to about this.”

Jen seems to slowly come back to life.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just a lot to process.” Jen takes a second, swallowing. “You, umm, you said you love her?”

“Oh. Umm, yeah. I guess I did. But we’ve never talked about it and I don’t know how she feels. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s hard, you know?” _This is the sort of thing women talk about, right? It’s normal?_ Judy doesn’t exactly have much practice with close female friendships.

“I do know.”

“I guess I just wish I’d have made us talk about last night more. I didn’t want to push her or anything, she’s busy, but she’s already brushed me off about rescheduling. And I’ve kinda been acting like it’s all okay, that I don’t mind, but obviously _I do._ I didn’t tell her that I felt off today, I didn’t worry her like that. I didn’t want to bother her with it.” Judy says, like she’s sure she’s figured out how to be the least inconvenience.

“If this Dear Friend knows you as well as you’re saying she does, don’t you think she must know that something’s up and be worried about you anyway?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” _Shit_. _What if she is worrying anyway? She shouldn't be concerned about me._

“Maybe you should just tell her – about how you feel about last night, about today, about how you feel about her, all of it. I’m sure she would want to know.” Jen trails off and laughs a little, like that should be obvious maybe? Judy doesn't really get the laughter.

“Do you really think so?” Judy says, her voice sounding so unsure.

Jen reaches put and lays a hand over Judy’s on top of the blankets, giving an only slightly pained smile.

“I definitely do. Talk to her, Judy. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

Today’s only the second time they’ve ever touched, Judy always being careful after the disaster on her first day at work together. It’s a strange feeling. Kinda nice. Judy such a tactile person though, that she wants more.

“Can, umm, can I give you a hug?”

“I don’t know that we’re there yet.” Jen deadpans.

Judy’s face falls.

“I’m joking, Jude. Come here.”

She helps Judy to slowly sit up and pulls her towards her body, Judy leaning her head on Jen’s shoulder as arms wrap around her.

They sit for a bit before Judy speaks again.

“I’m sorry for ranting at you like that. What I really meant to say is how sorry I am for chasing you out yesterday. That wasn’t okay.”

“You were expecting to see someone you trusted, someone you cared about, and the enemy turned up instead. Of course you didn’t want me there. I get it.” Jen says, sounding so sad. It makes Judy’s heart ache, knowing that’s what Jen thinks she is in Judy’s life.

“You’re not the enemy Jen.”

“No? I’ve been pretty fucking awful.” Jen scoffs.

Judy can’t exactly deny that.

“Maybe. But you’re being kinda nice now,” she says.

“I swear to god if you tell Karen and Ben about this. I already seem to be losing my touch with them. If they find out I'm this fucking soft, I'll never be able to scare them away again.” Jen says, pulling away enough for Judy to see her face – Jen looks so horrified at the thought that Judy laughs. _Who knew Jen was actually funny?_

“Hmm, yeah, it would be so terrible for everyone to find out you’re such a softie.” Judy says teasingly.

Jen points a finger at her, obviously trying to put on a glare but there’s too much laughter in her eyes for it to work. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

The laughter is dying down when Judy notices the box on the coffee table, realising that she never asked about it when Jen arrived.

“What’s that?

Jen looks away, looking kinda shy again. _Is she embarrassed or something?_

“Oh, umm, when I found out you weren’t at work, I thought I’d bring you this. I thought it might cheer you up?” Jen says, breaking her hold on Judy to lean forward and grab the box, opening the lid so Judy can see what’s inside.

“Carrot cake?” Judy says, smile turning wide, face brighter than it has been all day. “How did you know?”

“Oh. You remember that day last month when you were kinda sad and Karen and Ben brought you some carrot cake into work?”

_Yeah, but why would Jen have noticed that?_

“If you secretly hate it and didn’t have the fucking heart to tell them you can just throw it, it’s fine.”

Jen looks at her like she knows that won’t happen, but Judy wants to reassure her anyway.

“No. No, you’re right. It is my favourite. Thank you.”

They share a smile for a moment. Then Judy yawns, unable to hold it back.

She’s so tired, but she doesn’t want to be rude, doesn’t want to offend Jen now that it’s so nice between them, now that they’re getting somewhere. Jen obviously notices though.

“You should get some sleep,” Jen says, putting the box of cake back on the table.

“No, what about you?”

“It’s okay. I’ll stay until you fall asleep, don’t worry about it. Just rest, Judy.” Jen says, helping her lie back down on the sofa, draping her baby blanket over the others on top on her.

*

Judy wakes up to an empty apartment a few hours later, feeling a lot better.

She feels kinda hungry now. She spends half a second thinking about what food she has in and is actually capable of cooking before she remembers Jen’s cake, reaching for the box, grabbing the fork inside and taking a bite of the slice.

She’s still shocked that Jen knew her favourite cake. The day Jen had been talking about, when Karen and Ben bought her cake, was actually her birthday, but she’s not surprised Jen didn’t know that. Judy had made sure that they didn’t make a big deal out of it and decorate the backroom or anything, not wanting to risk angering Jen and Lorna again with more ‘unprofessional’ things. They all thought they’d hidden their tiny celebration so well – but apparently Jen still noticed enough to know what sort of cake she liked?

Judy finds herself a little distracted thinking back over her birthday. It’d been a great day in the end, once she’d cautiously admitted to Dear Friend what the day was once she got home. Dear Friend insisted they did something. Judy told her that her co-workers had given her this cake and Dear Friend immediately went out to buy a carrot cake too, so that it was more like they were together to celebrate.

The boys even got involved, Charlie apparently complaining the whole time about how carrot cake is the worst sort of cake, how a cake with vegetables in shouldn’t even count, but eating two slices of it anyway and grunting a ‘happy birthday to your friend’ for Dear Friend to pass along.

There was a lot of wine drinking after that. Judy didn’t remember much of the rest of the night until she read back over her messages again the next day.

Judy thinks about what Jen said, about just telling Dear Friend - about how she’s feeling in case the other woman knows something is wrong, she’s not going to say more about her _other feelings._ She’s not ready for Dear Friend to know that yet, not before they meet and Judy can try to figure out if the other woman feels the same, if her friend will even like her in person.

She just really doesn’t want Dear Friend to be wasting time worrying about her if she does know something’s up.

She starts drafting a message, knowing it’s going to be another long, probably rambly awful one, but she really wants to get this right.

_‘Hello dear friend. I’m sorry if I’ve been a little weird today. Last night was such a mess, I’m sorry. I hope that one day soon we can sit and laugh about it all. My friend said that I should talk to you now, though, so here we go-’_

Judy’s mind wanders to Jen again as she’s thinking back over their conversation.

It was so nice for her to come and check on Judy, to spend so much time here making sure that Judy was okay when she didn’t have to. And it turns out Jen is actually such a kind person, when she’s not angry, it was so nice for them to have a real conversation and not have it turn into an argument or end with Jen snapping at Judy again.

It was sort of lovely, really.

_Okay, back to writing the message, Judy._

_‘-so here we go. Yesterday, when I was sat waiting in the bar, I was so excited to see you’_

No, that sounds too much. Judy don’t want to make Dear Friend feel bad or guilty for anything, it’s not like it’s her fault.

Judy tries again.

_‘-last night, when I was at the bar...’_

_Last night._

_Last night I was so rude to Jen, making her leave like that. And yet she still came today? And still brought me cake, my_ favourite _cake?_

Jen had just been so different today. It’s like she showed Judy a totally different side of her. Judy always knew there was more to her – she still remembers sensing so much sadness in the woman when they first met, but that seemed to fade away over the last few months. Judy’s always been so curious about the other woman, about where the sadness and the anger came from, but anytime she tried to figure it out or ask in the early days, Jen would glare at her and shut her down.

 _Maybe we can be friends now, that it can be different?_ Now that she knows this other side to Jen, she doesn’t think she could go back to being barely tolerated – she really hopes Jen doesn’t go back to that either. She doesn’t think she will.

Judy looks down, fork picking up the final piece of carrot cake. She smiles at it, savouring the last mouthful as she eats it.

_Okay, Judy. Stop thinking about Jen and write this message to Dear Friend._

She needs to find someway of saying how she feels, just in case Jen is right and Dear Friend does think that something’s wrong and is concerned.

Hopefully, they can put last night’s disaster behind them and try again and it’ll all work out. They can meet and spend time together and be happy and it’ll all be perfect.

It’ll all be okay, just like Jen said.

She scraps the whole draft and starts again.

_my dear friend..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternative chapter 10 was Judy getting a message from Dear Friend saying 'open your apartment door' and Jen standing there, but that would've been a little too easy, sorry.
> 
> I am entirely incapable of finishing one thing before starting another so I have a new multichap AU coming that should appear on the archive in the next couple days! It should be a little more light-hearted than this, nice and angst-free.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! I hit 1000 kudos on my dtm fics this week, thank you so much for all the support!! 💖


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hate this chapter. I've always hated this chapter, right from my initial plan and the first draft of this story it has been the one I was dreading writing. But unfortunately, there’s exactly one thing in here that is like really, really important to the story before we can move on to Judy again, so here we are.
> 
> Bring on chapter 12 already, that one’s fun.

Jen eventually makes herself leave the apartment when it’s starting to get close to the time to pick the boys up from school. Judy’s still sleeping, she has been for a while, and honestly Jen’s starting to feel a little weird that she’s still there, sat next to her on the couch, like they’re close friends who can watch each other sleeping.

As if this whole thing wasn’t completely weird and insane to begin with.

_What the fuck was I thinking?_

Jen doesn’t really know which fucked up thing that she’s done she’s asking about this time.

When she finally leaves, she has the sense to get in her car and drive away, just in case Judy wakes up and notices her still parked outside – she’s not sure she could explain away her fucking breaking down right outside her place without confessing everything, and she has no idea where to start with this whole fucking mess she’s made.

She makes it about two streets away, turning a corner before pulling up and stopping by the sidewalk to fucking scream at herself.

Because the thing is, despite it all, despite how much she should fucking hate herself right now, for lying again, for months of being an asshole, for making Judy so fucking rightfully wary of her, all Jen can think is how Judy said she loved her.

Well, she loves Dear Friend, but that’s the same thing. Right? _Shit._

_She said she loves me._

_She said she’s a little bit in love with me._

If you’d have suggested to Jen two days ago that fucking Judy Hale, the person she instantly wrote off and disliked from the moment they met, could have any positive feelings for her, and that Jen might actually be happy about it, she probably have found some golf clubs to throw at your fucking head.

Now though, now it’s all she can think about, _Judy’s_ all she can think about. She feels like she could cry.

She didn’t bother getting to know Judy literally at all, not one tiny thing about her. Jen just hated her because what, she smiled a bit too much and looked a little arty? _How fucking judgmental am I?_

And now it turns out that she’s actually this really incredible person that Jen’s been talking to every day and falling asleep with every night, the person that knows more about Jen, someone that Jen knows more intimately than anyone else in the world?

It turns out that Judy’s the person that she’s been in love with this whole time, who apparently loves her back.

Jen’s surprisingly okay with it now. She thinks she probably shouldn’t be, that she should be mad at the universe for putting her in this crazy situation, for fucking with her life like this, but she was too fucking happy with Dear Friend, _you mean too fucking happy with Judy, Jen,_ to not be okay with it.

Maybe Dear Friend being someone else, a stranger, would have been easier, but now that Jen knows it’s Judy, it’s kind of impossible for her to picture Dear Friend ever being anyone else. It just makes so much sense now.

She wonders idly if Judy will think the same, once she finds out, or if the two versions of Jen are too distinct to put together so easily.

Jen’s blood runs cold, tears forming for a different reason.

_Judy still doesn’t fucking know, you fucking idiot. How the fuck are you going to tell her now?_

She just has to keep making it fucking harder for herself doesn’t she.

Jen doesn’t even know why she went to Judy’s apartment, not really, not beyond a desperate desire to check if she was really okay, to see that she wasn’t too upset after last night. She didn’t intend to lie again, she doesn’t think.

The devil on her shoulder, the voice she doesn’t want to acknowledge speaks up:

_Then why did you fucking make sure to turn your fucking phone on fucking silent before you went knocked on the fucking door._

Jen doesn’t have a fucking answer.

The panic is starting to rise like a tidal wave, getting higher and higher until it’s threatening to overwhelm her.

What the fuck does she do now?

How does she fix this, how does she let Judy know, without risking losing her, without losing both Judy and Dear Friend entirely?

Maybe she can just never tell her, that could work. But no – Judy knows that they live barely miles away from each other, there’s no way she can just pretend to be busy for the rest of her life and keep messaging her as Dear Friend like there’s no fucking tomorrow.

That’s just not going to work.

Jen doesn’t think that just going up to Judy and saying ‘I’m Dear Friend’ is going to work anymore now though. If she’d have just said it last night, before the lies started, maybe it all could have worked out okay, maybe Judy could have one day forgiven her for being such an asshole and they could’ve worked something out, figured out a way to really be friends.

Now though, now that Judy has told her, Jen, how she feels about her, Dear Friend, she truly does not have a clue how to move further without hurting either of them.

Fuck, she doesn’t want Judy to get hurt just because she’s such a fucking piece of shit.

Jen’s phone vibrates in her pocket.

It’s Charlie – obviously she’s sat here too long and school must have finished. She sends him a quick text to say she’s stuck in traffic but will be there soon, because really, what’s one more lie now.

She’s drying her eyes, about to start driving again, when she quickly changes her mind and searches for an old playlist to play over the car speakers.

It’s been well over a month since she listened to her familiar metal music. Jen used to use it so much to help control her anger, like a form of medication, when Ted first died. She’s been using it less and less since Dear Friend, _urgh, JUDY,_ came into her life, anger not quite her dominant emotion anymore.

Today though, today she needs to turn the music up as loud as it will go and shout along, needing to not think anymore, needing to drown all the happiness and anger and self-hatred she’s feeling out so she can face her children again.

She turns the music off as soon as she pulls up, seconds before the boys clamber into the car.

Jen thinks she’s done a pretty good job, that she’s got her emotions back in check enough to be able to wait until the boys are in bed before she undoubtedly starts spiralling again later.

Obviously not though.

Charlie says ‘hey’, barely sparing a glance her way like normal, and she expects him to immediately return to being fixated on his phone, but instead he double-takes, looking at her closely.

“Mom?” is all he says, limited concern in his voice, but it’s enough to ger Henry’s attention, and then he’s looking at her curiously too.

“Are you okay, Mom?” he asks.

_What is this, the fucking Spanish Inquisition?!_

Shit, she really needs to get better at hiding stuff.

“I’m fine, boop. It’s just been a long day, and I didn’t sleep very well. How was Christopher’s?”

The deviation works, Henry quickly chatting away about Chris and Alan’s dog, Charlie losing interest enough to slot his headphones back over his ears and ignore them again.

Jen tries to let the normalness of it all wash over her and calm her down again.

*

It's not until after dinner, when she’s washing glasses in the kitchen (no need to wash anything else since they ordered pizza, once again, she really needs to start being a better mom) that her phone finally beeps. It’s Judy, obviously, who she figures probably must have only just gotten up.

@thegirlwithnoheart –

my dear friend. I’m sorry if I’ve been a little weird today. I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier, or last night. I’m not okay. Last night was such a mess, and I’m so sorry that you had to go through all of that, with the boys, I never want you to think putting them first is a problem.

It’s just, I really like you. Like, really like you. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. I need you. you’re my person. Sorry if that sounds weird, but I think it’s true. You’re like, THE most important person to me, you probably always will be, even if we never get to see each other and all we ever have are these little messages. I can’t lose you.

I’m a little scared that maybe last night changed things between us and that’s the last thing that I want to happen. Are we okay?

Well, fuck.

Judy really took actual-Jen’s advice to heart and told dear friend how she felt, huh? _Well, mostly._

The message is so lovely and understanding and not blaming Jen at all that it just fucking breaks her heart. How can this possibly work out? Maybe she should just end it all now, tell Judy that Dear Friend isn’t going to talk to her anymore, to just call it quits before it gets even messier.

Jen takes a deep breath and makes a decision.

No.

For once in her fucking life, she is not going to be negative Jen. She is not going to hurt Judy by abandoning her like that.

She’s going to figure this the fuck out.

She doesn’t know how yet, but she will find a way to tell Judy, to make up for all the lying and the aggression, without destroying her. She can do it. In time.

For now, Jen decides she’s going to try to be better, both as herself and as Dear Friend, to try to be as nice and as normal as she can be, to give Judy all the care that she deserves.

God knows she can’t keep being a total bitch anymore.

Jen thinks for a moment before sending a response.

Later, after a few glasses of wine and some safe joking over old sitcoms, Jen almost finds herself looking forward to work on Monday.

As much as she has no idea what she’s going to do yet, to get out of this mess, she thinks it’ll kind of be nice to see Judy. Hopefully it can be different from now on, that work won’t be so terrible if she has someone she likes there, if she isn’t getting angry at everyone all the time.

She hopes that it will be better. That she will be better.

_@winemommy – yes, we’re okay. I’m so sorry that I ever made you doubt that. I don’t know what I’d do without you either babe. You’re like, the one truly good thing I have. You’re never going to lose me, okay? I will never choose for that to happen. Ever._

_@winemommy – by the way, you’re my person too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way linda plagiarised my dear friend note talking about christina yesterday before i could even publish it <3
> 
> Thank you for reading and commentating 💖
> 
> Go read berryforager’s ‘The Romance of Self-Discovery’, it is a god-tier fic and i am completely in love with it


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just, you know, a casual 5000+ word chapter because I have too many feelings about these two idiots right now and I couldn't bring myself to edit it down any more. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! 💖

After a very much needed relaxing weekend spent watching old movies and almost constantly talking to Dear Friend, Judy arrives to work on Monday not really sure what to expect.

She’s not sure what Jen will be like, if she’ll be as sweet as on Friday or back to her normal self. She doesn’t think Jen will be cruel again – she hopes not anyway – but she doesn’t know what will happen now they’re back on a more equal footing, now Judy isn’t sick, and Jen isn’t just being nice and looking after her.

“Morning!” she says to no one in particular as she walks through the door, noting Lorna in the far corner looking something over, Ben and Karen stood talking in the middle of the room, Jen by the ‘employees only' door.

Jen turns around as soon Judy speaks, a shy smile taking over her face. It’s a little unexpected.

“Judy! Hey!” she says, probably louder than she intended if the flinch and glance around to see if the others noticed are anything to go by, quickly walking up to meet the brunette. “How are you? Are you feeling better?”

Judy’s happy she’s not being ignored again, but she finds she doesn’t really know what to do, how to act around this nicer version of Jen at a place she’s only ever been, well, not nice.

She puts on a smile and answers anyway, through the slight unease she’s feeling.

“I’m good. A weekend of relaxing did me good. Thanks. Thank you, you know, for being there with me on Friday,” Judy says as sincerely as she can.

“Please don’t thank me for that. I barely did anything. No one would have been able to leave you when you were like that…" Jen responds, and Judy just has so disagree with that. Most people, especially people who clearly did not particularly think favourably of Judy, would definitely not have done what Jen did last week.

“Jen, you went so far above and beyond, with the tea and the cake and everything—”

“—Really, it’s not a big deal” Jen says, cutting Judy off.

Judy thinks it’s ridiculous, but she’s finding herself laughing a tiny bit anyway.

“Jen, will you please just let me thank you?”

The smile on Jen’s face grows, bigger than Judy is used to seeing.

“Okay,” she says quietly.

The quiet barely gets to sit between them before they’re interrupted.

“Jennifer!” they hear, the woman in question jumping at the sound of Lorna’s voice.

“Well, I should go, and umm, see what she wants…” Jen says, lazily walking a few steps backwards, like she doesn’t want to look away from Judy or something, before finally turning and heading in the direction of their boss’ office.

 _That was strange,_ Judy thinks, but figures Jen was probably just trying to put off having to go and talk to Lorna for a few seconds longer. It’s very obvious how much the blonde dislikes the other woman, so it sort of makes some sense.

She runs into Jen a couple more times later on, and each time her co-worker has a smile or says hello. It makes the day kinda weird, so different to normal, but Judy can’t exactly say that she hates it. And really, the day isn’t anything like as awkward and awful as she was fearing it might be earlier. Jen doesn’t try to rip her head off or ignore her or anything like she was worried could happen.

Judy sort of expects that to be that, that they’ll be work acquaintances who don’t completely hate each other from now on and just say ‘hi’ in passing.

That doesn’t happen.

A couple of days later, Judy has been dealing with a truly terrible customer, one that even she will admit to not taking a shine to. Once he finally leaves, having finally stopped with the overly obscene flirting long enough to fill in purchase paperwork, Judy relaxes, leaning against the wall with a sigh.

“What a fucking dick,” she hears furiously whispered from someone by her side, taking her by surprise.

“Jen?” Judy asks confused. She didn’t expect the woman to have noticed, or to try and start a conversation about it. And she definitely didn’t expect to hear the anger that’s in Jen’s voice.

“Seriously, where the fuck did he get off talking to you like that? Take a fucking hint, fucko.”

Judy laughs at that, Jen softening enough to join in.

They shouldn’t be laughing like this, not at work, not about a customer whose very sizeable commission Judy just got. But there’s something about being _in_ on Jen’s anger, rather than being the target of it, that Judy, as awful as it is to admit, kinda finds she enjoys. 

After that, it’s like Jen just keeps trying, keeps making efforts to talk to Judy, to make her smile. It’s nice, really nice even, but Judy’s still really cautious about it. She feels like Jen’s trying to make amends for being so mean before, almost like she’s trying too hard to do it.

For quite a long time, there’s still the fear that Jen is going to switch back and decides that she hates her again.

One evening, about a week later, Judy walks into the backroom to get her things, ready to go home and run a bath and message Dear Friend for a while, when she sees Jen is still there, sat on one of the chairs.

“Oh, hey Jen. You’re still here?”

Normally Jen is the first one to run out the building as soon as the workday is officially over.

“Yeah, I’m about to head out,” she replies, standing up, lingering in the doorway while Judy gathers her things. “So, umm. How was your day?”

Judy looks back at Jen to see her pulling a face, cringing at herself. They did just spend all day in the same room, it’s perhaps not the most thoughtful question.

“That was really fucking weird, ignore me,” Jen rushes to continue awkwardly.

Judy tries to run with it anyway.

“My day was good. And how was yours? Did anything exciting happen?” Judy says, knowing full well that Jen stood on the other side of the room doing the exact same as her all day.

“Fuck you, Judy, I was trying to be nice,” Jen replies. For a second, Judy’s sent back to the times Jen said that before, out of anger, aiming to hurt, but this time Jen is laughing and there’s no malice in her voice and maybe, maybe it’s okay now. Maybe they’re really okay.

“So, what are you up to tonight?” Jen asks after a moment. Judy’s kinda shocked; Jen is really trying so hard even though she clearly isn’t used to making small talk like this.

The very least she can do is try too, to put everything in the past behind them once and for all.

“Nothing much really. I'll probably just get high and message my _friend_ for a bit, you know the one from, yeah...” Judy trails off. “Are you doing anything interesting.”

“Oh, no. Nothing,” Jen responds dismissively, like she wasn’t expecting the conversation to be turned back around on her. She quickly asks Judy another question, pushing the attention away from herself again. Judy notices, but she’s not about to start pushing Jen on things now, not now things feel so civil finally.

Eventually, they end up leaving the building, walking outside into the parking lot, steady conversation about nothing important continuing between them.

Judy stops next to her car, doing a ‘well, this is me’ gesture with her hands.

Jen notices, stopping mid-sentence to say, “well, umm, I should go. Let you get home. I’ll talk to you – I mean, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She quickly walks away, leaving Judy more confused than ever. It’s one thing for Jen to be making small talk occasionally at work, but to be sounding sort of like she’s looking forward to seeing Judy again tomorrow? It’s very strange. Especially when two weeks ago Jen would have bit Judy’s head off for speaking in her direction

She’s still feeling unsettled half an hour later when she pulls up outside her apartment building, looking to her phone to see a new message from Dear Friend

@winemommy – hey babe. I just finished work. The boys were demanding your tacos again earlier, can you talk me through making it again, so I don’t burn my house down in a bit?

Judy laughs. There’s almost no way that her friend can’t not know this recipe by heart by now – she can’t possibly be that terrible that she still needs help with it – but she sees it for what it probably is, an excuse for them to talk for a couple of mostly uninterrupted hours.

She’ll never say no to that, to Dear Friend wanting to talk to her.

That doesn’t mean she’s not going to tease her relentlessly for still needing help though.

@thegirlwithnoheart – still haven’t figured out how not to burn things, huh? what’s it like, being so hot that you set everything around you on fire?

@winemommy – haha yes, your dear friend cannot cook. We know

@winemommy – can you help though? Please baby?

Dear Friend sounds like she’s practically begging, and it makes Judy pause, it’s so rare.

She’s been having a hard time figuring Dear Friend out lately. Like now, has Judy pushed it too far, is she annoyed? Has she just been having a bad day, is that why she’s ignoring Judy’s teasing? But that doesn’t really make sense, because it’s normally so obvious when the other woman is upset about something. Is she really just that eager to spend time with Judy?

She really doesn’t know anymore, but Judy isn’t going to leave her friend waiting much longer.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I’m only kidding. You couldn’t stop me from helping you even if you wanted to. Do they want chicken or beef? Or am I finally convincing them that vegetables are good too?

*

Somewhere, among the cups of coffee that Jen keeps bringing her, the walks out to Judy’s car every night making casual conversation, the whispered jokes that keep happening now in the corner about that last customer or Lorna that Judy thinks should be terrible but can’t help but giggle at anyway, Judy finds that she actually kind of likes Jen.

Judy likes this side to her – she’s really entertaining to be around, when she doesn’t hate you.

One day, they’ve been stood talking by Judy’s car for a few minutes when she realises that Jen clearly not dragging her feet, not wanting to go home or whatever yet.

Judy’s guessed already that Jen is probably kinda lonely – she really doesn’t know much about the woman yet, or her housing situation or anything, but she can guess that the blonde probably lives on her own, and she doesn’t give off the energy of someone with lots of friends to talk to and invite around.

It’s not that Judy’s taking pity per se, she really is enjoying talking too, but maybe she feels enough for the other woman that she decides to just ask.

“Do you wanna go get a drink and keep talking for a bit?”

It all really changes from then. Drinks after work once or twice a week turn out to be fun, Judy finding it so easy to talk and talk and be so open with Jen now. And then one night they drink too much, and since they’re sat at the bar around the corner from Judy’s apartment, they decide to pick up pizza and go back to Judy’s to sober up for a bit.

Jen doesn’t stay long, eating and getting an uber home, but still, it turns into a regular enough thing, wine and pizza on Judy’s sofa. Just once or twice a week still, never more than that. They always go to Judy’s, never Jen’s, but Judy’s never really thought to ask why. No matter how much Judy tries to insist otherwise, Jen never crashes there, always going home to sleep, no matter what time they finally call it a night.

She figures it’s because Jen is so private; the blonde’s slowly opening up more, like really, really slowly, but whenever she does, it’s always so cautiously, like she’s really overthinking everything she’s saying.

Judy doesn’t think it’s necessary – she’s not a judgmental person, Jen could say anything to her and Judy would be okay with it – but she figures that’s just who Jen is, someone who will blurt out the meanest things without thinking when she’s angry, and put so much care into everything when she’s not.

She really likes it though, spending time with Jen, even if she doesn’t feel like she knows her too well yet. Jen seems so accepting of anything Judy says or does now, so open to it rather than being completely shut off like before.

It feels like Judy is making a friend, a real, true, in person friend.

Of course, through everything she’s still messaging Dear Friend about a hundred times a day. Jen’s been less strict about the ‘no phones at work thing' lately, so as long as Lorna isn’t on the gallery floor, all four of them, Ben, Karen and Jen included, tend to glance at their phones occasionally.

It's really nice, when Judy gets to glance down at her phone in the middle of the afternoon and see another really sweet message.

@winemommy – have you seen that new mural down by the park? It made me think of you when I drove past it this morning. Have a good day, talk to you later, dear friend of mine

Because yeah, things have changed for the better with Jen lately, but Judy thinks they might be changing with Dear Friend too.

Dear Friend has always been so sweet and caring and funny, but lately she’s just so soft and lovely so often that Judy finds herself a pile of mush about half of the day. The daytime messages – never enough for a full conversation, they’re both too busy for that, rather just something that shows Judy that the other woman is thinking about her – are one thing.

But the messages they send late at night...

Shit, if Judy wasn’t already in love with this woman before, she certainly would be now.

Sometimes, Dear Friend is just so sweet now, that it takes Judy’s breath away, so much so that she has no idea how to respond, more often than not resorting to her trademark bad flirting just to have something to say.

It tends to happen in the middle of conversations about nothing, the compliments, and Judy’s swept away by it every time.

@thegirlwithnoheart – she gave me an extra bagel for free too, it was really nice

@winemommy – that’s because you’re so nice. You’re like the nicest, kindest person on earth and literally anyone would be so fucking lucky to have you in their life. I know me and the boys are. Even lady at the bakery should be.

@thegirlwithnoheart – keep talking like that, and I won’t ever need to know your name. I’ll just call you mine.

@winemommy – smooth

And then sometimes, it’s not just Judy that is flirting anymore. It’s one thing, for Judy to send some silly weird pickup line. There’s meaning behind them when she does, sure, but also, it’s just how Judy is, using easy flirting to ease tension and try to make the other woman laugh. But when Dear Friend flirts, well fuck, Judy’s soul feels like it’s about to combust.

@winemommy – I had a dream about you again last night

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah? What was I wearing?

Judy’s not sure where this is going, but she’s always going to jump at the chance to throw Dear Friend off. She ends up thrown off instead.

@winemommy – not a whole fucking lot

@thegirlwithnoheart – oh, you mean…?

She’s not sure she can breathe at the suggestion that the other woman is really thinking about that, at least subconsciously, and definitely not that they’re actually talking about it.

@winemommy – we were on vacation on a beach somewhere, babe. It’s interesting that that’s where your head goes, though. Noted.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I mean, you did just tell me you dreamt about ‘me’ not wearing anything

@winemommy – I know I did.

@winemommy – anyway, how did it go at the garage earlier, did you finally get your car fixed?

She gets that the other woman wants to move on, that she’s clearly outside of her comfort zone and trying to steer back to save and boring territory. She tries to go along with it, to answer what is being asked and keep the conversation going, but her mind keeps drifting back.

Judy just hopes that Dear Friend means it and isn’t just messing around. Fuck, she doesn’t know what to do with the suggestion that maybe the other woman isn’t into her, that _maybe_ it is all a joke between friends or something because it is so very fucking far beyond that for her now.

But then there’s one conversation one night, after a good few hours of drinking, that has Judy truly believing, without any doubts, that this is something, that it has to be something, someday.

@winemommy – do you ever think about the future?

@thegirlwithnoheart – like about what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow or about how great I’ll look with grey hair?

@winemommy – the second, definitely the second

@thegirlwithnoheart – I mean, I’ll totally lean into the grey one day, I guess. Why, do you think about the future? I wouldn’t have thought it’d be your thing, dreaming too far ahead

Judy’s expecting some simple response, about how Dear Friend doesn’t really think about it, or that she just thinks of the practicality of care homes and money and things like that. She never could have imagined the response that eventually comes, after many minutes of bubbles appearing and disappearing on the screen.

@winemommy – I just, don’t you ever imagine what it will be like, you and me sat together on rocking chairs or some shit, you probably with long grey hair layers of hippy skirts, the house full of grandkids and your amazing food and just like, happiness fucking everywhere? And then we can send everyone off home with the boys and maybe we can just be like this still. Me with my wine and you with your weed and endless reruns of old tv shows, just like every other night for the past forty years.

 _Will_ , not _would_. Definitive, not conditional.

Grandkids and family and _them_ , together, really together, not through a screen.

Forty years.

_Fuck._

Judy feels fucking giddy with her needy excitement for that to happen. But her habit of lifting the mood for Dear Friend whenever it gets too heavy is so engrained by now that that she does it again, instead of showing her absolutely joy at the idea.

@thegirlwithnoheart – they would be very old tv shows by then. Do you really think the facts of life will still be playing?

@winemommy – it better be. Our future wouldn’t be complete without it

@thegirlwithnoheart – I guess I better by the box set then, we can’t risk it not happening

There it is. Her admission that she wants this too.

@winemommy – yeah?

 _How does Dear Friend sometimes still seem so unsure about what Judy wants, about how she wants this all to end?_ It all seems so obvious, so inevitable to Judy, most of the time. Especially right now.

@thegirlwithnoheart – yeah. I’m going to need to be snuggled up with you on a sofa watching ancient tv when we’re all old and wrinkly, it sounds perfect

@winemommy – we might have to keep it to some sickening hand holding, if my back finally goes before then

@thegirlwithnoheart – that sounds pretty wonderful too

They spend the rest of the night dreaming, describing this world to each other where they’re 90 and happy and together. Neither of them really touches on how _together_ they are, but then they’re talking about 90-year olds. Maybe the living together and gentle touching they’re describing is the highest form of intimacy they’re capable of admitting to wanting right now, using the excuse of old age to tiptoe around it.

But there clearly is something that they’re both tiptoeing around, and that knowledge is enough for Judy for now.

The first thing Judy does when she wakes up in the morning is screenshot the conversation, not wanting to lose it among the thousands upon thousands of other messages between them. She knows she’s going to need to be able to look back to it, all the time probably, but especially whenever she starts to doubt everything again.

Because the thing is, there is no doubt, after that conversation, that Dear Friend is feeling the same way Judy is. She’s just got to hold onto that for now, until they finally work all this out.

*

It really doesn’t take very long at all before Judy sees her and Jen as friends, real, true friends, friends that go shopping or grab lunch together in the middle of the day as well as the occasional evening drinking session.

They meet one Saturday morning for coffee, Jen appearing in her car but wearing workout clothes, leaving Judy to only guess that she’s been to the gym, or is going later or something. They sit talking, their quick coffee soon turning into more than an hour of talking before Jen’s phone rings on the table between them.

Judy jumps. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard Jen’s phone before, the woman always seemed to keep it on silent or something – either that, or she just never got many messages. Judy wouldn’t be particularly surprised to learn either way, if she’s honest.

“I'm really sorry, it’s a special ringtone. I have to take this. I’ll just be a minute,” Jen explains, apologetic smile on her face as she walks just out of earshot to answer the call.

She’s back within a minute, looking even more sorry as she picks up her things.

“I have to go. I’m sorry,” Jen says, offering no more explanation. It’s a very typical Jen thing to happen, Judy thinks, to have to leave without a reason or sharing who was on the other end of the phone. It’s a little annoying, maybe, but it’s just how Jen is, with all of her privacy and secrets. She’s not going to hold who the other woman is against her though, never.

“it’s okay,” Judy says, and she mostly means it. “This has been great.”

Judy stands up with Jen, gathering her things to leave too. They’re about to part ways outside the door, cars in opposite directions, when Judy pulls Jen into a hug without thinking.

She immediately freezes. They haven’t touched at all since that day in Judy’s apartment when she was sick – she knows how much Jen hates to be touched, it makes her extra grateful for how caring and good at looking after her Jen was, giving her what she needed when she held her that day. She’s been really careful to avoid it since though, to take Jen into consideration.

_How could you forget that Jen hates people touching her?! Stupid!_

Jen, though, Jen quickly returns the hug, wrapping her arms tightly around Judy as if she hugs people all the time, every day.

It’s very much not what Judy expected. Yet another mystery that Judy does not understand about her friend.

She’s still in shock when they pull apart.

“Bye.” Jen says, bigger smile on her face than Judy is used to.

“Goodbye."

*

Judy thinks she’s dealing pretty well with everything, with her new friendship with Jen and this increasing relationship with Dear Friend, with still not having the opportunity to meet her friend face to face.

She only feels like she’s a little bit in limbo – she’s not quite desperately waiting for something to change – she’s incredibly eager, of course, but she’s all about enjoying what is happening right now too, trying to settle into that attitude. She knows someday in the future something will happen, something that can only happen because of what she’s experiencing now.

That all kind of changes one afternoon.

Judy’s stood in the parking lot, about to go into the grocery store one day when something catches her attention.

She hears a couple of kids arguing, sees them walking out in the street, despite cars being there. Judy watches them concerned, useless parental instincts that she’ll probably never get to use kicking in, but she knows she can’t do anything. It’s just not her place.

She’s just about to turn away and go into the store when she hears them yell to the other.

“Charlie! Come on, Mom's waiting in the car,” the younger one yells.

Judy feels ice run through her veins. She’s frozen in place, staring at the younger one to try and figure out if he really just said what Judy thinks she heard.

“Urgh, fine Hen, I'm coming” the older one mutters, walking towards Judy, then almost walking into her, bumping into her side a little, seeming shocked that she was still stood unmoving in his path. He pauses, and looks up at her for the briefest second, uttering an empty “sorry”.

_Hen. Henry. Henry & Charlie. Charlie & Henry._

_Oh my god._

_Oh my fucking god._

Judy’s still motionless, the only movement manifesting in the way her chest is heaving, trying to keep breathing heavily as everything else in her body seizes up.

‘Charlie’ is still standing in front of her, though, and he looks almost concerned about her.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he asks, and Judy’s only thought is how wrong Dear Friend is about him sometimes, that he’s not just an asshole all of the time, that he’s actually kind of sweet, sweet enough to be checking on a strange woman in the street who is probably freaking him out.

“N-No. It’s, it’s okay. I’m okay,” Judy eventually manages to get out past the lump that is suddenly in her throat.

He just nods and turns, continuing after the other boy who is waiting up ahead.

She can’t help herself as she turns, eyes wide and following them until they disappear behind a truck, unable to see what car they get into.

That was her Charlie. And her little Henry.

As in, Dear Friend’s children, the kids she hears about like fifty times a day.

 _It could not have been,_ she pointlessly tries to tell herself. _There are probably hundreds of siblings with those names._

But it’s _them_. She can feel it, deep down she knows it’s them.

It just is.

Judy can’t breathe.

And then she remembers what one of them had said, what _Henry_ had said.

_Mom’s in the car._

Mom’s _in the car._

The realisation hits her like a fucking train. _Dear Friend is here._

She turns again before she can think about it, tears blurring her vision as she starts to step in the direction they went, but then she abruptly stops herself.

No. She’s not going to be so desperate as to run after Dear Friend’s children, that would just be too weird.

Too creepy and weird and disturbing and wrong.

Even if it’s all she wants to do, to follow them and say ‘hi, I’m your Mom’s friend, I’m the one she’s talking to all hours of the day, the one that talks her through cooking your meals and helps with your English homework questions when she can’t. Can I please give you a hug and then can you take me to her.’

 _Shit_ , if it isn’t all she wants to do.

 _No. It’s too weird. You’re not that weird. You don’t want_ her _to think you’re that weird._

She closes her eyes, to breathe, to stop herself, to get it all back under control, something.

A car horn honks, and Judy realises she’s now the one stood in the middle of the road. She tries to shake herself out of it, going inside to do her shopping in a daze.

She forgets most of the things on her list, and somehow accidentally buys fresh chicken and cat food and a giant bag of peanuts.

She doesn’t have a use for any of them.

It takes a few hours, and a weed gummy or two, before she finally relaxes and then gets up the courage to message Dear Friend and ask. She has to, has to know for absolute certain, even if it sounds fucking creepy to say, ‘oh hey, I think I saw your kids today, was it really them?’. God, she hopes this doesn’t all go wrong, somehow.

@thegirlwithnoheart – hey, were you at the grocery store today, the new one on 32nd?

The reply is instant, before Judy can even send her second message. She probably should’ve sent it all as one message, but she wanted to ease into it a bit, make it seem less strange than dropping it all at once.

@winemommy – what?

@thegirlwithnoheart – I, umm, I think I saw your kids there. They said each other names as they went by me.

@winemommy – oh shit, no fucking way

 _That’s a yes, right? That it_ was _them? They were all there?_ It isn’t clear enough; Judy needs to know for sure.

@thegirlwithnoheart – so it was you then, you guys were there?

@winemommy – did you see me babe?

Judy fucking wishes. _Keep it light, Judy._

@thegirlwithnoheart – sadly no, I was not blessed with the wonderful sight of you today. I don’t think I could have stopped myself from coming over to you if I had. I heard Henry say you were in the car though.

_That was so fucking awkward, Judy, come on._

@winemommy – Oh. Okay. Yeah, it was us. I can’t believe you saw the boys did they notice you?

@thegirlwithnoheart – Not really. I don’t think Henry did but Charlie did almost walk into me though

@winemommy – the little fucker

@thegirlwithnoheart – it was fine, it was mostly my fault.

@winemommy – I doubt that

@thegirlwithnoheart – no, it really was. I was kinda taken by surprise, I ended up in his way

@winemommy – if you say so, are you sure you’re not just being all lovely and forgiving again?

Judy definitely is not being that, not today.

@thegirlwithnoheart – I promise, totally my fault

@winemommy – so, umm, what did you think?

Dear Friend sounds so insecure, like she thinks Judy might criticise her parenting or something from a ten-second-long interaction. It’s kind of sweet, but Judy doesn’t want her to be doubting herself so much all the time, not so unnecessarily.

@thegirlwithnoheart – of the boys? They were exactly as you described. Honestly, I’m shocked I didn’t know who they were without hearing the names. You should be really proud of them, honey. And Charlie was sweet, really, he’s not asshole at all.

@winemommy – hmm, not to you, maybe

@thegirlwithnoheart – he had no idea who I was. He couldn’t have. Could he?

@winemommy – I don’t think so. I’m sure he would have tormented me about meeting you before I did already, if he did

@thegirlwithnoheart – oh, yeah that’s probably true. How are they doing, did they get all the food they wanted?

The conversation goes on, talking about the boys and the shopping and nothing much at all.

It’s strange, Judy thinks later, that Dear Friend still hadn’t asked to meet again.

Today was such a good opportunity for them to have met, for Dear Friend to have gone ‘well, now you’ve met my kids, how about you meet me’ and them hang out and drink and make out and let the end credits roll with ‘happily ever after’.

_You know how grossed out she would be if you ever told her you thought things like that, Judy. She’d probably never speak to you again._

Judy can’t help it though. That’s just what should have happened today, and she can’t understand why it didn’t.

It feels a bit like, if the other woman didn’t ask to meet today, after everything, when will she?

Judy decided long ago, after a couple of brush offs because Dear Friend was too busy or occupied with the kids following their last failed attempt, that she wasn’t going to ask anymore, that she’d leave that up to the other woman. But she still just hasn’t brought it up. It’s been an entire month now, since they tried and still nothing.

It’s hard, especially with how much closer they are lately, how they talk about the future, about each other.

It’s starting to really feel like just being friends isn’t a possibility, that once they finally do meet, they will _absolutely_ have to be more, that just being friends with this person is not going to be enough anymore.

Judy doesn’t know how much longer she can wait. That feeling she felt, the way everything in her just froze at the sound of Charlie’s name, she doesn’t want to feel that again. She can’t imagine how much more intense it would be to see Dear Friend in the street and suddenly know that it’s her. She’s not sure she could survive it.

Today, seeing Dear Friend’s kids, was just such a reminder of how close they are, that they could be passing each other in a store or on the street any day.

There’s a desperation inside of her now that wasn’t there before. She _needs_ to meet Dear Friend, needs to properly meet her family, needs to figure out whatever is between them.

She spends the evening trying to decide what to do, how to make it happen, but she doesn’t decide on much.

Maybe she should talk to Jen about it again next time they hang out. She was so helpful with all her advice last time. Maybe she can help, she might have some ideas about what to say that might prompt Dear Friend to want to try meeting again.

It feels like it’s worth trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what you think in the comments.


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